i 



SS ;J 



THE TUBINGEN SCHOOL 



ANTECEDENTS. 



Ov.o-:3 



J^A-l V^ • *^£ 



THE TUBINGEN SCHOOL 



ANTECEDENTS: 



A EEVIEW OF THE HISTOEY AND PEESENT CONDITION 



MODERN THEOLOGY. 



R. W. V MACKAY, M.A., 

AUTHOR OF "THE PROGRESS OF THE INTELLECT," "A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF 
CHRISTIANITY," ETC. 




WILLIAMS AND NORGATE, 

14, HENEIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, 

AND 

20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH. 
18 63. 



***** 



■■\? 



48 65 55 

JUL 2 1942 



HEETFOKD: 
Printed by Stephen Austin. 



PREFACE. 



The aim of the following pages is to give a short and 
intelligible account of the rise and progress of Biblical 
criticism. In order to estimate the matter fairly the 
reader must be requested to raise himself by an effort of 
reflection, if he be not so elevated already, above the level 
of current ideas. For without impartiality no judgment 
is of value ; and the special class of judgments called 
Biblical criticism properly commenced only when opinion 
began to be freely exercised on the subject. This free- 
dom was first used by Spinoza ; who in the face of 
unlimited obloquy performed the same daring feat in 
regard to the Bible which Luther, powerfully supported, 
had already achieved in regard to the Church. But the 
Church revived in new forms ; and a long interval elapsed 
ere the liberty so asserted by one eminent individual ob- 
tained even a hesitating allowance among professed theo- 



VI PREFACE. 

logians ; nor does the time yet appear to have arrived for 
entire abandonment of reserve, and an open appeal to the 
educated reason on such subjects among the public at 
large. Hence the necessity for alluding to the great 
hindrance created by religious establishment in repressing 
the free discussion of religious questions ; an influence 
which it is difficult entirely to avoid, but which, under the 
management of party or political indifferentism, cannot be 
too earnestly deprecated as directly tending to eternalise 
' decrepitude, to encourage hypocrisy, and to frustrate 
every good which Protestantism and Christianity are 
suited to accomplish. Men hold independent enquiry to 
be less safe as well as far more arduous than the com- 
fortable assurance obtained by clustering together in blind 
submission to the transmitted tenets of some religious asso- 
ciation, as if truth were generally and necessarily on the 
side of the majority instead of being very rarely so ; — 
" argumentum pessimi turba est." 

It is difficult to speak patiently of the continuing ad- 
herence to a system historically proved to be so injurious 
to the best interests of the human soul ; a system which 
in the name of religion paralyses all that is healthy and 
noble in religion; a system formed in the superstitious 
spirit of the dark ages, and so utterly inconsistent with the 
active intelligence of the present, that no reasonable being 
can seriously expect it to last, however unable to divine how 
or from what quarter amendment is to come. It is necessary 
to arrive at a distinct recognition of the fact that no one who 



PREFACE. Vll 



consistently cultivates his reason and honestly declares the 
inferences obtained by it, can possibly be a "sound" and 
loyal member of a church, although especially qualified to 
promote the interests of an educational establishment by the 
very attributes disqualifying him as a churchman. It 
may be said, Why should not a national establishment be 
rational ? why should religious asssociations inevitably 
assume hierarchical forms ? Abstractedly there could be 
little difficulty in modifying the terms of subscription, or 
even substituting the principle of progressive improvement 
alone suited to imperfect human nature for that of dog- • 
matical stagnation in national establishments. But then 
how expect a body of men to confess themselves in error 
whose whole existence has been a continuous protestation 
before heaven and earth that they are inevitably and. 
infallibly right ? How anticipate self- reformation from 
those whose very first feeling is one of antipathy to reform, 
and who, if an honest voice is heard among them refusing 
" to tell lies in the name of the Lord," decry it as " a stain 
upon their church" ? Or how expect the laity to sanction 
innovations in creed and worship, while implicitly believ- 
ing what they have been so incessantly and perseveringly 
told, that all piety and morality and even safety depend on 
maintaining these institutions intact ? 

To the feeling engendered by such influences the opera- 
tions of criticism will appear as destructive ; but destruc- 
tion reaches only injurious superfluities, leaving all that is 
vitally important to thrive the better for their removal. In 



Vlll PREFACE. 

the conviction that such a removal is salutary as well as 
inevitable, the ostensibly destructive agencies of the last 
century have been unreservedly hailed as a matter for 
congratulation in the following treatise ; its object will, 
however, be found to be not a mere recital of negations, 
but after admitting to the fullest extent the objections of 
modern scepticism, to raise and in some measure answer 
the obvious question — What resources of Biblical interpre- 
tation or of general religious faith have we still to rely on ? 
A man unconsciously in a state of bankruptcy is not the 
richer for his ignorance ; and it is useless to postpone the 
question of reparation when decay and demolition have 
already done their work. 

Mr. Mansel, who, in his Bampton Lectures, 1 disparages 
philosophy in order to restore the credit of dogmatic faith, 
urges a preliminary objection to appeals to criticism, on 
the obviously illogical ground that "to construct a com- 
plete criticism of any ' revelation ' it is necessary that the 
critic should be in possession of a complete philosophy of 
the Infinite ; and such a philosophy being impossible, it is 
not by means of philosophical criticism that the claims 
of a supposed revelation can be adequately tested." And 
yet, though argumentative criticism be unreliable when 
used against the revelation, it is, it seems, to be considered 
as indisputably conclusive when appealed to in its favour. 
Only, instead of attributing overmuch to what are called 

1 Lecture viii. 



PREFACE. IX 

internal evidences, such as the conscientious disapproval of 
those Bible anomalies and immoralities which Mr. Mansel 
terms " moral miracles/' due weight ought to be allowed 
to the improperly discredited external arguments as to 
authenticity, genuineness, etc., by which, according to this 
writer, our moral aversion is to be out-argued and over- 
borne, and the truth of the revelation established in de- 
fiance of the reclamations of conscience. For so soon as 
we have proved (or think we have proved) the revelation 
to be real, then it becomes only an additional argument 
in its favour that it contains irrational monstrosities ; the 
coloured rays of objection vanish in the white focus of 
contented acquiescence, and we bow to the God of Abso- 
lute Decree, without feeling any uncomfortable shock at 
instances of divine favour ostensibly shewn to immoral 
acts and persons (p. 161). But Mr. Mansel shuns the 
arena of critical discussion ; he affords no help whatever 
in estimating the sufficiency of the literary and historical 
evidence proffered to make good the deficiency of the 
moral. He puts the argument menacingly and bluntly 
in the form of a dilemma ; either Christ was an impostor, 
or else he was what he said he was — namely, the Son of 
Grod. But this is no fair or conclusive statement, since 
there remain other possible alternatives. It may still be 
asked — Did Christ really say what is attributed to him? 
and if he did, are his words meant to be understood in 
the ordinary English sense ? I These are the questions 
(neglected or only cursorily alluded to by Mr. Mansel) 



X PREFACE. 

to which the Tubingen School undertakes to give an 
answer. 

But the position of the school were unintelligible without 
some knowledge of its antecedents. An endeavour has there- 
fore been here made to supply this preliminary desideratum, 
adverting more especially to those points of error or omis- 
sion in the preceding theology which gave immediate 
occasion to its labours. In following out the processes of 
destruction and reconstruction historically, it became 
necessary to treat many points which are still discussed, 
or perhaps only beginning to be discussed, in England, 
as having been already conclusively settled during the 
course of the last century in Germany, — a country un- 
C questionably far in advance of our own in illustrating the 
natural developments of philosophical criticism. A com- 
bination of the general independence of the great German 
reformer with the profounder knowledge of modern times 
has there, almost unknown to English readers, created a 
truly historical criticism of the New Testament, and con- 
verted what in Luther were only hasty utterances of casual 
and personal antipathy or preference into reliable judg- 
ments, which only the recklessness of fanaticism can pre- 
tend to ignore. 

It should be observed that the Tubingen School here 
meant is not the old, but the new school of Baur, Schwegler, 
Zeller, etc. ; which, as representing the progressive spirit 
of true Protestantism and. of sound learning, must be the 
basis of all future research in relation to the New Testa- 



PREFACE. XI 

ment. It should also be mentioned that the remarks 
occurring below about theism and pantheism are meant 
rather to express the fundamental assumptions of modern 
German theology, than anv definitive opinion of the 
writer on a subject as to which the greatest minds have 
held indecision to be wisdom. 



CONTENTS 





Part I. 










GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 


1 


PAGE 

A. Modern Protestant Dilemma . . . . 1 


2 


Church Principles .... 






4 


3 


Church Theology and True Theology. 






12 


4 


General Position of the Tubingen School 






16 


5 


Origin of Dogma .... 






18 


6 


Its Adoption by the Eeformers . 






21 


7 


Befutation of Dogma 






23 


8 


Hesitating Attitude of Theology 






28 


9 


Absolute Miracle .... 






32 


10 


The Scripture Principle . 






46 


11 


Altered Yiew of Inspiration 






48 


12 


The Evidences 






55 


13 


The Eeadjustment of Belief 






61 


14 


General Severance of Artificial and Natural Belief 


73 




Part II. 




SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 









1 Origin of Historical Criticism .... 

2 Increase of Learning 

3 Text Criticism 

4 "What is Canonicity ? Semler's " "Word of God." 

5 The Canonicity of " Genuineness." . 



81 
87 
91 
93 
100 



XIV 



CONTENTS. 



10 
11 
12 

13 

14 

15 

16 
17 



PAGE 

103 



Eichhorn ........ 

The "Abstract" Criticism. Eichhorn' s Ure van gelium 
"Abstract" Criticism continued. — Gieseler, Schleier- 

macher, etc. . . . . . . .111 

Shortcomings of Abstract Criticism — Hug, Bertholdt, 

Credner, De "Wette 

Conjectures as to the Eourth Gospel. . ' . 
Strauss and the Mythical Interpretation . 
Application to the Bible. — Allegory and the Accommo 

dation Theory. ..... 

Historical and Philosophical Mythus 
As applied to the New Testament . 
The " Leben Jesu" of Strauss. 

Its Effects 

Issue of the Controversy 



106 



114 
120 
123 

131 
136 
141 
146 
153 
157 



Part III. 

GENERAL INFERENCES OF THE TUBINGEN CRITICISM. 



1 The Alternative of Supernaturalism or Criticism 

2 The Real Deficiencies of Strauss 

3 Discovery of the Literary Purpose . 

4 General Course of the Tubingen Criticism 

5 Yiew of the Progressive Development of Christianity 

6 The Acts of the Apostles 

7 The Eirst Petrine Epistle 

8 The Genuine Pauline Letters . 

9 The Deutero-Pauline Letters . 

10 The Pastoral letters 

1 1 The Thessalonians . 

12 Professors Jowett and Hilgenfeld on Thessalonians 

13 Ephesians and Colossians 

14 Philippians . . . . 

15 The Growth of Asiatic Christianity 



171 
181 
187 
192 
196 
211 
216 
220 
223 
225 
232 
236 
242 
246 
252 



CONTENTS. 



XV 



1 6 Authenticity of the Fourth Gospel . 

17 The Passover Controversy of the Second Century 

18 Inconsistency of the Fourth with the other Gospels 

19 Plan, or Theory of the Gospel. 

20 Dialectical Encounter with the Jews 

21 The Raising of Lazarus and Last Series of Discourses 

22 Circumstances and Import of the Crucifixion . 

23 Explanation of the Inconsistencies . 

24 The other Canonical Gospels .... 

25 On the Causes of Pseudonymous Writing . 

26 The Replies.— Ewald's Life of Christ 



258 
264 
274 
279 
286 
291 
295 
299 
311 
331 
343 



APPENDIX, 



A On Political Immorality . 

B On the Immorality of Churchmen 

C On the Religious Import of Philosophy 

D A Vindication of Miracles 

E Lechler and Ritschl. 



353 
361 

381 
385 
387 



ERRATA. 



5, line 20, for " creeds" read "ends." 

33, last line of note, for " Ed." read " (Ed." 

48, line 27, dtffe " internal." 

68, line 20, for " are" w(? "an." 

89, line 1, for " tends" mis*? " tended." 
123, last line, for " helpless" w^ "hopeless." 
199, line 22, /or "implies" «s(? "implied." 
268, line 11, for "neither" read "either." 
268, line 12, for "nor" read "or." 
322, line 28, for " \oyov" read " \oywv." 
340, note, line 6, for "\eyoyrts" read " Keyovres." 
353, last line but one, for "absolute" read " obsolete." 



THE TUBINGEN SCHOOL, 



ETC. 



PAET I. 

GENEBAL ANTECEDENTS. 



A Modern Protestant Dilemma. 

It seems strange that in a country where the Bible is so 
highly prized as it is in England, so little notice should 
be taken of some of the best opportunities of making it 
intelligible. Few have even heard the name of the 
Tubingen School, unless through desultory notices in 
reviews, or the misrepresentations of opponents. Yet 
here may unquestionably be found some of the ablest 
efforts ever made towards explaining to the healthy un- 
perverted reason, the meaning and origin of the writings 
of the New Testament. And the neglect seems the more 
remarkable when we reflect that the Bible is the commonly 
reputed basis of English education. 1 No pains, one 

1 Lord Derby, for instance, said (February 28, 1852) : "The greater the 
amount of education you are able to give, and the more widely you spread 
that education through the masses of the community, the greater chance there 
is for the tranquillity, happiness, and well-being of the country. But when I 
use the word education, don't let me be misunderstood; I don't mean the mere 
development of the mental faculties, the mere acquisition of temporal know- 
ledge, or mere instruction, useful no doubt as it may be, which may enable 
a man to improve his condition in life, and may give him fresh tastes and 
habits, and the means and opportunity of gratifying those tastes and habits ; 
but valuable as that may be, when I speak of education, I speak of this alone — 
education involving the culture of the mind and of the soul, laying the basis / 
and foundation of all knowledge upon knowledge of the Scriptures" 



Z GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

should have thought, had been too great* to insure the 
solidity of such a superstructure by securing its founda- 
tions ; by testing the interpretation and history of the text, 
and by correcting any known errors in the translation. 
Yet the foundations are here rashly assumed ; tortoise and 
elephant both hang dubiously over a chaos of uncertain 
opinion and tradition ; l tradition either entirely unexplored, 
or explored only in the partial spirit of advocacy and with 
more or less predetermination as to the issue. The best 
critical works in foreign languages are untranslated ; and 
Dr. Arnold, in 1835, spoke of Biblical criticism as almost 
unknown in England. Interpretation too remained, until 
quite recently, in the same unsatisfactory state. " I never 
found one of our old divines," says Arnold, 2 " who, as 
interpreter of Scripture, was above mediocrity. Writers of 
this stamp have no facts to communicate ; so I have left 
off reading them, since, as Pascal said of the Jesuits — I 
should have only wasted my time over a number of very 
indifferent books." A singular confusion of mind seems to 
prevail very generally in regard to this matter of Bible 
interpretation. For while all other departments of know- 
ledge avowedly rest on distinction and definition, here 
the inference is made to precede examination of the 

1 The sixth Article of the English Church defines "Holy Scripture" to consist 
of "those canonical books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority- 
there was never any doubt in the Church." This Church the commentators on 
the Articles explain to be the " Universal Church," "some particular churches 
having doubted of a few of them, viz., — The Epistle to the Hebrews, the 
Epistles of James and Jude, the Second and Third of John." But how can 
the " Universal Church" express opinions on questions of literary criticism? 
It can do so only through the hands or voices of its human members ; through 
the councils of the fourth century, or earlier testimonies of the Fathers. But 
it is precisely the Fathers by whom the authenticity of the " Antilegomena" 
is contested ; and even their testimonies only begin from the middle of the 
second century, — for no earlier date can be claimed for the spurious writings 
attributed to the "Apostolical Fathers." Bishop Burnet appeals in attestation 
of the authenticity of the fourth gospel to Irenseus, because he knew Polycarp 
who was John's disciple. But where is Polycarp' s attestation ? This is like ' 
the proof of Martin Chuzzlewit's descent from Guy Fawkes, or the story 
told on hearsay evidence of report by a credible witness, who had it from 
"very good authority." 

2 Arnold's Life, vol. ii., p. 56. 



A PROTESTANT DILEMMA. 3 

premises, and we are emphatically warned to disregard 
distinctions and details, the first condition of a successful t 
exegesis being not to harp on particular passages or books, 
but to seek the " general analogy and intention of the 
whole." 

These indications may help to explain the seemingly 
anomalous contradiction between extreme activity in circu- 
lating the Bible, and extreme listlessness as to its compre- 
hension. For it is of course comparatively easy to obtain 
confirmations of a preformed conclusion by means of 
affirmative instances and proofs collected from the whole 
Bible, if we deliberately shut our eyes to the negative ones ^ 
occurring here and there in its several parts.. But this can 
only be an elaborate process of self-deception. The Bible 
virtually offers religious freedom to the intelligent by 
appealing to the feelings and judgment of individuals. 
But the want of intellectual or moral competency, com- 
bined with the ingenuity of interested parties in taking 
advantage of its absence, creates a fetter out of what 
might have been the charter of emancipation; so that to 
many people the Bible is really little more than a pious 
memento like the Papal relic, or African fetish ; degraded, 
in fact to subserve that lowest kind of idolatry which 
consists in the unreasoning worship of a thing without 
any reference to the meaning. To a worshipper of this 
class nothing is so irksome as explanation. Like Horace's 
madman cured by hellebore, he exclaims — 

Pol me occidistis amici, 
Non servastis, 1 

when by dispelling mystery and obscurity you destroy his 
favourite illusion. Examination, although Scripturally . 
enjoined, seems a dangerous incongruity, nearly allied to 
profanation. Who cares to trace the history of a holy 
nail, or to subject the miscellaneous inventory of Roman. 

1 " Instead of saying, these well-meaning friends have ruined me.'.' 



4 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

Catholic devotion to chemical analysis ? The religious 
value of the idol ceases when you put it into a crucible, 
and too curiously measure its pretensions a3 a work of art 
or monument of history. Hence it is that while we hear 
so much about " believing the Bible/' so little is said as to 
understanding it. Hence, too, the reluctance to correct 
errors of translation, or to expose the best efforts of com- 
mentators and critics to public scrutiny ; and thus Pro- 
testantism, set helplessly adrift with a book which it 
cannot decipher, and committed to a principle which it 
cannot or will not carry out, becomes the jest of its 
antagonists, — standing bewildered between the two testa- 
ments, and, as recently instanced in the Sunday contro- 
versy, unable to see distinctly the difference between Jew 
and Christian. 



Church Principles. 

Escape from such bewilderment is impossible without 
a clear knowledge of its source. This the recovering 
patient will find to be in himself; in his very imperfect 
education ; x in the mental timidity and indolence which, 
shrinking from individual responsibility, seek refuge in 
formulas and institutions. A seeming shelter of this kind 
is offered by religious association. But religion is essen- 
tially individual ; its nature changes when brought within 
the influence of association, then inevitably degenerating 
more or less into a fashion, a policy, or a compromise. 
Nor is compromise ever more fatally misleading and un- 
principled than when, instead of being a mere temporary 
resource, 2 it assumes the character of a principle, and 

1 Dr. Arnold defines the evangelical, — " a good Christian with a narrow 
' understanding, a bad education, and little knowledge of the world." Arnold's 

" Life and Correspondence," vol. i. ch. vi. 

2 Like the shifting tabernacle in the wilderness preferred by Stephen, in 
Acts vii. 44, to the fixed house built by Solomon. 



CHURCH PRINCIPLES. 

claims a lasting dominion over the soul under pretence of 
being infallible and divine. It may be natural and even 
necessary for current beliefs to mould themselves into 
certain visible forms of creed or association ; but we per- 
vert the course of nature when, misled by ambiguities of 
language, we insist on giving perpetuity to arrangements 
really requiring incessant supervision and renewal. 1 Two 
meanings mingle in the term church, which it is very 
common to confound, but which it is very important to 
distinguish. The local community alluded to in the 
gospel (Matt, xviii. 17) is one thing; the spiritual edifice 
said to be built upon a rock is another. But the am- 
biguity passes unheeded, and the notion of a spiritual or 
ideal kingdom furnishes an unfailing excuse for the abuses i, 
of worldly establishments. Churches in the common mean- 
ing of the term are necessarily political. However honour- 
able the motives of the individuals composing them, their 
corporate aim is not truth, but conformity and expediency. 
They are coalitions formed to defend a given faith, to disci- 
pline irregular fanaticism, to promote the ^eeds of govern- 
ment or of party. For these objects they stoop to the 
broadest level of popular unanimity, adjusting themselves to 
the low standard of the many, and discouraging, as far as 
possible, the scruples of individual intelligence. A church 
becomes practically an instrument for superseding indi- 
vidual thought on the highest problems of human concern- L 
ment, and supplying a ready made solution at the cheapest' 
rate of obedience and unreflecting assent. The mechanical 
observance, the technical belief which it was at one time 
thought expedient to accept as congenial to the tastes and 
capacities of a majority, it makes indispensible and im- 

1 Free thought never forms a church. ; yet churches, whose very essence 
is a carefully adjusted equilibrium of conservatism and compromise, tend, 
under favourable circumstances, more and more in the direction of freedom. 
In a free and civilized community more and more compromise and compre- 
hension is continually called for ; and then either the conservative principle 
gives way, or the establishment perishes. Arnold's Life, vol. ii., p. 59. 



6 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

perative for ever and for all. Finding mankind in a state 
requiring guidance, it treats them, not as improveable, but 
as essentially unreasoning creatures, characteristically 
comparing the laity to fish, sheep, and stones ; l i.e., 
animal and material things which are used for a purpose, 
and become valuable only by aggregation. Whenever, 
interposing on behalf of the humbler classes, it lends a 
helping hand towards the establishment of political liberty, 
it is not from a genuine love of freedom, but only in order 
to substitute a mental absolutism of its own, a yoke far 
more noxious and insidious than any it contributes to 
remove. 2 Hierarchies have often promoted material im- 
provement, and performed a useful part in the infancy of 
societies. The priest is the appropriate elementary 
civilizer of a barbarous age, subduing savage minds by 
superstitious terrors to observe the rudimentary decencies 
of social life, as prescribed, for instance, in the discipline of 
Orpheus, 3 or the statutes of Leviticus 4 and Menu. 5 A 
church fashions the rude feeling of religion into form, 
represses its excess, and provides a safe channel for its 

1 The simile of sheep is too common to need illustration. For the com- 
parison of lay members of the church to stones, see 1 Peter ii. 5; Hermas, 
Vis., ii. 3, 4 ; Ignatius to the Ephesians, ch. ix. The fish-symbol of 
Christianity occurs frequently on gems, and on the monuments in the Lateran 
and Vatican museums. Its origin may be found in the designation 'of the 
Apostles as "fishers of men" (Matt. iv. 19), and in other passages (as Matt, 
xiii. 47 ; Luke y. 6-10) ; the narrative (John xxi. 11) is supposed by Jerome 
to be symbolical, the net being the church of Peter (see Kostlin, in .the 
Tubingen Jahrbiicher, vol. x., p. 195). An ancient hymn, cited by Clemens 
Alexandrinus, thus addresses Christ : — 

'a\iev ixepoirccv 

rr<av <ra>(o/x€VQW 

ireAayovs Kaitias 

tXOvs ayvovs', 
and Tertullian, de Baptismo, ch. i., says: "N~os pisciculi secundum IX0TN 
nostrum Jesum Christum in aqua nascimur." See Munter's " Sinnbilder der 
alten Christen," p. 48. 

2 Cardinal Wiseman, in a sermon preached some years ago in St. George's 
Cathedral, emphatically announced that if we would only resign our minds 
and consciences to Eome, he would leave us in undisputed possession of all our 
liberties. 

3 " Silvestres homines csedibus et fcedo victu deterruit Orpheus." 
* Leviticus ch. xvii. 21- 6 Menu v. 31, etc. 



CHURCH PRINCIPLES. / 

legitimate expression. But its uses soon cease, and are 
always dearly purchased. Its initial postulate of infalli- 
bility opposes an invincible non possumus to projected 
change, and thus becomes an almost insurmountable 
barrier to improvement, perpetuating the superstitious 
imbecility which alone justified its interference, and made 
its discipline appropriate. The impossibility of recognising 
and embracing a higher truth leaves insincerity or ignorance 
the only alternative. The compression of religion into 
routine ; the indolent surrender of conscience ; the perver- 
sion of reverence to an idolatry of traditions, vestments, or 
books ; the arrest of education, — since education in clerical 
hands must always be controlled by the primary ecclesiasti- 
cal conception of the nature of truth, — such are, generally 
speaking, the results of that momentous sacrifice to short- 
sighted expediency, that artificial confinement of an essen- 
tially progressive faculty within conventional limits, which 
is implied in a church. 

And it should be noticed that church influences are 
especially unsuited to free states depending for their safety 
and prosperity on individual effort and intelligence. A 
religion professionally prescribed, and unthinkingly taken 
as a manufactured article from the shop, supposes the 
reverse of the mental energy which is the soul of political 
independence. Freedom may temporarily subsist as a 
habit or patrimony indolently inherited from former ages ; 
but it cannot for ever maintain its balance on a pole with- 
out adjusting and sustaining forces ; nor can men, led 
passively by superstition, be relied on to assert under 
trying circumstances the principles of self-government. 
It has been said that churches, if not an unmixed good, 
are yet a necessary evil. Yet it is hard to see, apart from 
custom and association, what useful end they serve which 
may not be better gained by other and less exceptionable 
means. Is it the maintenance of order in religious so- 
cieties ? But this may be had in all such societies alike as 



8 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

lay institutions under the control of civil government. Is 
it education ? Churchmen are, as a class, the least fitted 
to undertake this most important work in any sense save 
that of Jesuitical indoctrination, and a propagandism of 
the obsolete dogmas inherited from semi-barbarous ages. 
Is it governmental influence obtained by bribing the self- 
interested zeal of ecclesiastics ? But the unprincipled 
theory of a church advocated by Hume, 1 i.e., as an instru- 
ment in the hands of government for hoodwinking an 
ignorant population, were too candid a confession of a 
dishonourable truth to be openly tolerated now. To say 
that, after so many centuries of " religious education," a 
Christian people is so helplessly ignorant as to be " posi- 
tively dangerous to civil order without priestly guidance," 2 
is not so much to accuse education, as to proclaim the 
utter incapacity of those who have mismanaged it, and 
that Protestantism and Christianity have both been 
failures. Protestantism, in so many respects irresolute 
and reactionary, was in nothing more fatally inconsistent 
and untrue to itself than in its attempted perpetuation of 
church principles. Its real spirit is the reverse of ecclesi- 

I astical; it has no more to do with churches than with 
transubstantiation. When, after the ecclesiastical univer- 
salism of the middle age, individual religion and national 
government revived, the use of a church, of that ominous 
" city of God" which had risen over the ruin of temporal 
government, was properly at an end. It was ended by the 
substitution of Erastian principles for theocratic ; and yet 
so long as a name for ages linked to theocratic theory con- 
tinued to be used, the thing too continued in menacing 
abeyance, ever ready, in conjunction with other inherited 
prejudices, to bring back medieval stagnation, and to 

[ thwart the better efforts of individuals or governments to 
promote that mental improvement which is the real meaning 

1 History, ch. xxix. 

2 Remarked in a leading article of the " Times," October 15, 1862. 



CHURCH PRINCIPLES. 9 

of Protestantism. In the theory of the " invisible " church 
through which alone its secession from Kome could be 
justified, Protestantism possessed the prolific idea of educa- 
tion as the proper business of the visible ; 1 but the idea 
was dimmed if not effaced by the kind of education pro- 
posed, and the necessity felt by Lutheranism of establishing 
a position in the eyes of the world, by insisting, against the 
anarchical Donatism of the Anabaptists, on the reality of 
the church in a too literal and Koman spirit. In the first 
disruption of national government from the ecclesiastical 
one which had so long been thought entitled to an exclu- 
sive monopoly of the higher influences of teaching and 
administration, it seemed as if a blank had been created, 
and that a national ecclesiasticism was wanted to fill it. 
It now appears that every beneficial change connected with 
education has to be won against the interested opposition 
or still more injurious co-operation of religious parties, and 
that the chief difficulty of modern states is the open or 
concealed rivalry of hierarchies. 

There are many who are sanguine enough to think the 
church to be susceptible of regeneration, and of becoming 
a fit instrument for directing the true educational develop- 
ment of the national mind. This must be the opinion 
of the many eminent men who remain members of it, 
although painfully made aware of its defects, and na- 
turally the first to undergo the ostracism of its tyranny. 
Assuredly it can be no easy matter to reconcile ideal and 
practical interests, — to make an institution essentially de- 
fensive and conservative into a trustworthy instrument of 
progress. It would be indeed a happy consummation if 
the immense influence and resources of churches could be 
diverted into a new channel, and made for the maturity, as 
in the infancy, of nations, an effectual means of civilization. 
But history and experience discountenance the hope. Cir- 

1 This is hinted in more than one confession when speaking of the neces- 
sary imperfection of the visible church. See Calvin's Inst., iv.,' 8, 12, seq. 



10 



GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 



cumstances forced the reformed churches into servile de- 
pendency on governments ; and governments, in spite of 
Plato and Dr. Arnold, are essentially utilitarian and im- 
moral. Politicians study peace rather than progress ; they 
say a thing " works well," when ostensibly favouring 
existing circumstances and interests : l and the ideal, 
which was subordinated in the old theocratic church, seems 
entirely suppressed in its more emphatically political 
successor. 2 In grasping at the stability and permanency 
in which it was deficient, Protestantism lost the flexibility 
and power of self-adaptation 3 which so long made Catholi- 
cism tolerable, and enabled it to maintain its ground for so 
many ages. 

Meantime the progress of ideas went on under other 
auspices. The general rights of free thought and tole- 
ration so nobly advocated by Spinoza, Locke, and 
Thomasius, after the desolating wars and persecutions 
originated by religion in France and Germany, • were 
generally conceded ; science advanced in the path of dis- 
covery unchecked; and philosophy and history began to 
operate silently but surely on general intelligence. There 
resulted a renewal of the old estrangement between theo- 
logy and knowledge under singularly anomalous circum- 
stances; a barefaced deification of absurdity altogether 
unprecedented in the history of the world. Churches 
notoriously based on civil enactment resorted to the des- 
perate expedient of attempting to defend untenable ground, 
in despite of better knowledge, by reviving exploded 
claims of theocratic infallibility ; and their members were 
placed in the false and cruel position of official guar- 

1 See Appendix A. 

2 " In the great end of a church," says Dr. Arnold (Life, vol. ii. p. 57), 
" all churches are now greatly defective, — the life of these societies has long 
heen gone ; they do not help the individual in holiness ; and this in itself is 
evil enough ; — but it is monstrous that they should pretend to fetter, when 
they do not assist." 

3 That is, in virtue of the lofty claim of the old church to he the outward 
covering or body of the divine spirit. Ephes. ii. 20-22; iv. 13. 



CHURCH PRINCIPLES. 11 

dians of superannuated prejudice, of being* debarred 
from teaching and professing what they were not for- 
bidden to learn. They were compelled to be in a sense 
deceivers by a deceptive system, as well as a people reso- 
lutely apathetic and " pien di sonno" as to religious 
novelties, and obstinately bent on being deceived. They 
alone remained in anomalous isolation, married as it were 
to an eternal formulary, without the possibility of di- 
vorce, however antiquated or irksome the appendage might 
have grown ; and, while ostensibly directing the highest 
spiritual interests, inconsistently compelled to wear an iron 
mask, and to observe the circumlocutory tone which is 
equivalent to eternal silence. The vice is in the system ; 
making it impossible to attach exclusive responsibility to 
either of the parties, layman, clergyman, or politician, 
who are concerned in the result. The layman is for the 
most part helpless, occasionally, perhaps, exerting a feeble 
and desultory influence over opinion in exceptional cases, 
but generally forming the impelling force or dead weight of 
the machinery, forcing it to work in the old direction, and 
content, in case of insubordination or default, to do the 
work of inquisitor or executioner. The others contribute 
both actively and passively to the dead lock of religious 
fixture ; the one demoralized by the system, 1 and loth to 
jeopardise a precarious remnant of theocratic assumption 
by permitting the anomalous intrusion of change and lay 
interference ; the other equally averse to disturb preten- 
sions practically conducive to material interests, and 
already to a large extent beyond their control. Under 
such circumstances it seems difficult to imagine how an 
institution formed for resistance can undergo the angelic 
transformation into an instrument of progress, without a 
crisis which must be deprecated, or a previous lay educa- 
tion which it were vain to expect. Fast anchored to the 
shore, how shall a church teach us to navigate the ocean ? 

1 See Appendix B. 



12 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

How shall a mechanical slave of circumlocution abruptly 
assume the command of the Channel fleet ? We have 
emancipated the negro, the Catholic, the trader, the univer- 
sity undergraduate ; the clergyman, it is to be feared, 
must wait for emancipation until, in despite of untoward 
influences and obstacles, we have achieved a modern 
miracle in emancipating ourselves. 

Church Theology and True Theology. 

Yet the better impulses of human nature defy arbitrary 
limitations. The religious nature of man is a perennial 
tendency towards perfection. What are fame, family, 
science, but tangible subordinate phases of that Infinite 
which religion looks for absolutely, and in itself ? Moral 
beings are essentially progressive ; for morality is but the 
regulated pursuit of an end or good, and all human good 
is relative, all attainment provisional and imperfect. 
Genuine theology must therefore have a progressive cha- 
racter. Considered in its true sense apart from conven- 
tionalism, it can only be another aspect of education and 
philosophy; meaning pursuit of the good and true, un- 
limited aspiration supplementing in a particular depart- 
ment the actual imperfection of human nature. The true 
religious philosophy of an imperfect being is not a system 
of creed, but, as Socrates said, an infinite search or ap- 
proximation. It is no unalterable quantity or form of 
doctrine, but a continual growth, whose temporary image 
and expression is the best opinion of the best informed 
persons of the day. It is never ending and " ever learn- 
ing ; " like the apostle, whose strength was perfected in 
weakness, it makes a boast of insufficiency and uncertainty, 
never hesitating to admit an error, or to recognize in each 
successive discovery the conditions of a new problem. 
False theology is a formula adopted from common opinion 
or tradition to suit the indolent ill-educated majority. It 



TRUE THEOLOGY PROGRESSIVE. 13 

stereotypes the relative as if it were the absolute. It 
shuns the admission of a mistake, or the correction of a 
formulary, as if it were annihilation. It shares the quali- 
.ties of the institution from which it emanates. It resembles 
the church, which, according to its own favorite hypothesis, 
has no movement or history; whose deliberate aim is to 
replace the energies of intellectual life with a sterile finality 
and unwholesome repose ; which, instead of effectually 
quelling the tumultuous waves of controversy, only in- 
creases the risk by denying the existence of the storm, and 
administering an opiate to the crew. 

And yet, notwithstanding the obstinacy of churchmen, 
theology has never in actual fact stood wholly aloof from the 
influences of advancing intelligence. It arose out of the ne- 
cessity of attending in a degree to the suggestions of reason, 
and of appropriating the resources of secular knowledge. 
Its ostensibly immediate object was doubtless self-establish- 
ment and defence ; to secure, certify, and prove its favorite 
beliefs. Its first overt act of signal importance was the 
patristic effort to define its fundamental ideas, and to de- 
fend them against heresies ; the next was the scholastic 
one, that elaborate endeavour to maintain the truth of 
these carefully defined axioms argumentatively by aid of 
formal logic. In each case reason was treated as the hand- 
maid, and the attitude of theology was avowedly conserva- 
tive. But this is only one part of the subject. Eeligion 
primarily belongs to feeling and intuition. Its first theo- 
logical effort is an attempt to select out of the unsifted 
heterogeneous stores of reason and imagination what 
appears best suited to express those feelings, and thus to 
form a popular creed. Churchmen then make the pre- 
maturely consecrated formulary into a perpetual and 
universal limit. They " must obey God rather than 
man;" and hence, whenever clerical hands interfere with 
education, assumption tends to usurp the place of reason, 
an arbitrary tone is propagated downward, education 



14 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

merges in instruction, and the school assumes more or less 
the functions of the seminary. And yet in the midst of 
this characteristic arrogance and narrowness, theology 
could not entirely belie its better nature, or resist the 
silent operation of the law leading on even the most re- 
luctant to something higher and nobler ; the spirit which 
in time overcame the obstinacy of the Jew, and revolu- 
tionised the form of Christianity. Animated from the first 
with the wish to attain a more distinct knowledge and 
mastery of its own conceptions, it began to discriminate, to 
enquire ; as St. Paul, the first Christian theologian, more 
accurately defined the true relation of the Christian ideas 
to those preceding them. Doubtless the process which 
gradually substituted the work of intellect for that of 
feeling, tended, in course of time and under the peculiar 
circumstances of theology, to paralyze the free emotional 
flow of religious aspiration in rigidities of system. Still 
the impulse was in itself salutary ; it was the ineradicable 
desire of the intellect to enrich faith with knowledge. The 
very effort to analyse and defend the current ideas of re- 
ligion, placed them in a new light, and changed their 
relative import. And then why such anxiety to certify 
and prove, if the believer was fully certified already ? why 
ransack human philosophy and learning to complete a 
really self-sufficing creed, or to fortify impregnable truths 
to be maintained at all hazards regardless of misgiving ? 

The fact is that the conservative and' defensive attitude 
of theology is only secondary ; its primary tendencies are 
sceptical and critical, — a desire for self-purification and 
amendment, engendered by the lurking sense of obscurity 
and insufficiency. However irritably jealous of interrup- 
tion and contradiction, it is the unceasing agitation of a 
problem, a perennial process of self-regeneration. Each of 
its many varieties led slowly but surely towards a more 
thorough transformation ; and when the modern growth of 
thought and science challenged rivalry, theology too began 



TRUE THEOLOGY PROGRESSIVE. 15 

to talk philosophically, and to appear in various novel 
forms of rationalistic intermixture. Reason was first sum- 
moned to prove the dogmas, afterwards the documents ; 
then to make quantitative distinctions in the matter be- 
lieved by distinguishing essentials from non-essentials ; 
then to go the still greater length of effecting a qualitative 
change by expounding the given creed in new and non- 
natural meanings. But with these symptoms of a higher 
nature there ever mingled the baser terrestrial taint which 
thwarted and retarded it. There was a lack of the vital 
element of impartiality and freedom. How could theology 
be really philosophical, when assumption still anticipated 
argument, and the first axiom of philosophy, that of the 
value of knowledge for its own sake, was in principle 
denied 1 The attempt to appear so could, under the cir- 
cumstances, be only a slow process of self-refutation, in 
which assumptions too dim to be thoroughly understood, 
yet too sacred to be directly controverted, were gradually 
sifted and discredited b}^ ineffectual efforts for their defence. 
Arguments and evidences proved to be insufficient and 
inapplicable; the attempted distinction of " essentials" 
was baffied by conflicting inferences, until at last it was 
seen that " rational theology," as understood by eccle- 
siastics, is a virtual self-contradiction ; that the substantive 
denies what the adjective affirms ; and that the only way 
in which reason can usefully deal with transmitted creeds 
is by tracing their historic origin and signincancy ; by 
shewing the once natural and rational sources of what 
seems to be essentially irrational now ; by following step 
by step the course of their decline and transformation ; 
in short, by a twofold process of alternate destruction 
and reconstruction, by overthrowing the false theology of 
fixture, and constituting a new theology 1 of progress. 

1 "New," at least in common parlance and appearance; for Christianity, 
understood in the sense of absolute idealism, already contains the principle of 
all progress. 



16 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

The end of the struggles and hesitations of theology should 
be philosophy ; but philosophy takes its stand too far 
outside of established premises and prepossessions to be 
popularly relished or understood. Theology, if faithful to 
its proper mission, is better qualified to act as mediator, 
and by raising the standard of reform in the midst of 
establishment, to facilitate its eventual transformation. 
Generally, however, it will be found to obey the reac- 
tionary instincts of the Order connected with it ; it falters, 
prevaricates, and finally retreats ; so that its hapless dis- 
ciples share the fate of the Oxford tutor who innocently 
started on a London journey, but getting into the wrong 
coach at Henley, unexpectedly found himself at the close 
of the day at the door of his own college. 

General Position of the Tubingen School. 

Of the better kind of theology, understood in its true 
meaning of philosophical enquiry directed to a peculiar 
class of subjects, the school founded by the late Professor 
Baur of Tubingen is the most memorable modern ex- 
ample. In combination with the negative criticism of 
Strauss, it may be viewed as an exceptionally creditable 
reaction against the halting irresolute liberalism forming 
the ordinary staple of theological compromise during the 
past and present centuries. The relative " supernatu- 
ralism" or latitudinarianism of Germany, of which, were 
light more popularly acceptable than darkness, the Tu- 
bingen school should have been the natural termination, 
was the state of theological tension engendered by those 
long continued assaults of rationalism on traditional ortho- 
doxy, which, beginning with the Socinians and Arminians, 
and assisted by Locke, Spinoza, and the Deists, ended in 
what is called the " Aufklarung," or " clearing up" of the 
eighteenth century ; when orthodoxy at last felt under the 
necessity of borrowing the attitude and armoury of ra- 



GENERAL POSITION OF THE TUBINGEN SCHOOL. 17 

tionalism to combat rationalism, and partially underwent a 
real metamorphosis into the character it assumed. Church 
belief thus passed through many involuntary modifications, 
and bore the scars of many a desperate encounter. The 
forces of thought and learning, long timidly confined to 
matters of inferior interest, began to invade the highest ; 
so that even churches shewed a prudent willingness to 
relent, to modify their harsher paradoxes, and by easting 
overboard what seemed unnecessary ballast to endeavour 
to save the ship. The so-called material contents of the 
Bible were distinguished from the formal; and, after the 
example roughly set by Luther, many books of the New 
as well as Old Testament were doubted or discarded. 
Then philosophy retaliated the long usurpations of me- 
dieval ecclesiasticism, and under the auspices of Kant and 
Hegel went the length of taking theology under its patron- 
age, affecting to restore a sort of ghastly vitality to the col- ~V 
lapsed and sinking creed. But its embrace proved even 
more deadly than the open hostilities of rationalism ; 
and Schleiermacher's inimitable philosophical disguise 
only shewed how much could be achieved in the way of 
illusion by perverted ingenuity, and how completely, since 
the days of Spinoza, the relative pretensions of the two 
powers had been reversed. And it soon appeared that the 
momentary readjustment was no effectual transformation. 
The elements so artificially and carefully mixed in 
Schleiermacher's laboratory refused to combine, perversely 
resuming their separate form when the operator with- 
drew his hand and ceased to agitate ; so that the mas- 
querading theologian was followed by a crowd of undis- 
guised reactionaries. The effects- of the reaction were 
especially felt in the department of Biblical criticism ; and 
it proved to be as hard for professed theologians to become 
really philosophical critics, as for a rich man to enter the 
kingdom of God. They would allow candles, but not 
lighted ones ; they tolerate Hamlet, but always with the 



18 



GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 



principal part most carefully left out. Although it had 
been ostensibly admitted that Scripture was to be treated 
on the footing of other books, a lingering superstitious 
deference for the object of enquiry prevented a full and 
satisfactory examination of it. Many points really very 
questionable continued to be assumed, and enquiry was 
still conducted on erroneous principles. The ruling theo- 
logy was ambiguous and insincere, full of subterfuge and 
evasion ; an incongruous medley of free research and 
religious preoccupation ; in short, it was unphilosophical, 
falling short of complete impartiality, and therefore incom- 
plete in its results. 

Origin of Dogma. 

Of the concurrent existence of two conflicting principles 
in theology its history affords unanswerable proof. True 
theology has ever been the secret source of the mental 
movement which churchmen are foremost to suppress, and 
whose constantly recurring antagonism originated the say- 
ing, "philosophi hasreticorum patriarchse." 1 The true 
religion of the few comes into inevitable conflict with what 
may be called the coarse philosophy of the many, because 
one is essentially progressive, while the other assumes a 
premature attitude of finality ; and, because with the 
necessary beliefs of natural religion, almost all religious 
systems combine certain practices, opinions, and books, 
really possessing only a temporary and accidental value, 
but which are put forth by authority as universally neces- 
sary and infallible. Artificial dogma formed but a small 
and really very subordinate part of original Christianity. 
There is historic truth in the saying that Christianity was 
not a doctrine but a life ; the most memorable of all 
recorded phases of that idealism which is the essence of 
religion, and which, though here carried to excess in an 

1 Tertullian adv. Hermogenem, eh. riii. 



ORIGIN OF DOGMA. 



19 



extravagant renunciation of the world, was still noble in 
despondency, and moreover signally distinguished by the 
moral reformation always more or less accompanying 
great religious changes. 1 But the feelings and maxims of 
Christianity would scarcely have made a distinct historical 
epoch had they not been attached to an historically re- 
markable individual ; and hence by a natural illusion the 
feelings and convictions of ethical and intellectual religion 
were eclipsed and superseded by an idolatry of the person. 2 
Christian dogma grew out of a very common and familiar 
fallacy. Personal attachment to a teacher is well known 
to be far more really influential than the intrinsic sound- 
ness or credibility of the lesson ; and vulgar minds bow to 
the gown of the clergyman or professor rather than to the 
worth or cogency of his arguments. Hence, in ordinary 
cases, what is said is of far less consequence than who says 
it ; because it is far easier to recognise titular and personal 
qualifications than to discriminate truth. The same thing 
occurred in Christianity. However convincingly evident 
its leading ideas, — the duties of faith, patience, fortitude in 
suffering, equity, and charity, — Christians profess not to 
have acquired these notions as rational convictions, but to 
hold them as divinely communicated lessons, as deriving 
all their importance from the personal teaching or instru- 
mentality of One bearing a specifically official character 
and historical position as the Jewish Messiah or Son of 
God. In thus making personal adhesion and docility 
rather than rational obedience its primary test, and indulg- 
ing in figurative allusions to an external atonement really 
unconnected with its internal principle, Christianity pre- 
pared the way for its metamorphosis into objective or 

_ * This view of the meaning of Christianity appeals to history for adjudica- 
tion, not to the fanciful theories or prejudiced feelings, — which at one time 
insist on its being a miraculous scheme of redemption or expiatory sacrifice, at 
another the doctrine of theo-anthropology or of the God-man,— the doctrine of 
the resurrection, etc., etc. 

2 " It is far worse," says Origen in his Commentary on Matthew, " to be 
unsound in the faith than to commit moral offences." 



-~^n 



20 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

dogmatical theology. Admiration of the founder demanded 
exaltation of his character ; afterwards it became necessary 
to determine the precise relation of this exalted character 
to the Almighty ; then to adjust without confounding the 
various constituent elements of his own mysterious being ; 
to explain how two natures, each perfect in itself, could 
coexist in one person ; next to define man's relation to this 
compound personality, and the mode in which salvation 
depends on Christ's agency and office ; and thus, after 
centuries of controversy, were formed certain self-contra- 
ry dictory theses about God, sin, and retribution, which 
ripened into the Trinitarian, Soteriological, and Eschato- 
logical definitions of the creed. And since all these in- 
ferences, however really human in their origin, were 
ascribed to revelation, and in the victorious propagation of 
Christianity, faith, or the " demonstration of the spirit," not 
elaborate proof or argument, was prime mover, — it naturally 
followed that the priority and supremacy of faith, including 
under this name the creeds and dogmas of the church, 
continued, except in a few isolated remonstrances, 1 to be 
an admitted postulate throughout the middle ages. During 
the latter part of this period, a grand effort was made on 
the part of faith to ally itself condescendingly with reason 
under the name of scholasticism. But the attempt to bind 
incongruous elements artificially together ended only in 
their more decided repulsion and separation. Henceforth 
religion and philosophy took different paths : and the 
failure of scholasticism, resulting from the tacit assumption 
of an undue superiority on one side, eventually became 
the starting point of a new development on the other. 
Theology, which from the first courted the alliance of 
reason only on the footing of a superior, retreated to the 
supercilious isolation which was natural to it, and took the 
attitude which it has since generally found it expedient to 
retain, that of unreasoning dogmatism. Instead of the 

1 Erigena and Abelard. 



ADOPTION. OF DOGMA BY THE REFORMERS. 21 

scholastic " credo ut intelligam," the nominalists resumed 
the "credo quia absurdum" of Tertullian. 1 On the other 
hand philosophy, shrinking under church repression, was 
obliged to confine itself to physical enquiries ; or if ven- 
turing on higher topics, to accompany the effort with a 
cringe of obsequious apology expressed in the common 
formula, " hsec omnia Ecclesise Catholics auctoritati sub- 
mitto." 

Adoption of Dogma by the Reformers. 

During this nonage of philosophy traditional theology 
continued supreme, and although heart and intellect were 
obscurely searching for something better, the long estab- 
lished dominion of the church gave to its books, formalities, 
and creeds, a spurious vitality long after they should 
logically have been extinct. 

The times have been 
That when the brains were out the man would die, 
And there an end. — 

But dogma did not die when by the issue of scholasticism 
its irrationality was manifested, because men had not been 
generally taught through cultivation of reason to feel the 
religious claims of reason ; they were far from acknowledg- 
ing that " credo quia absurdum" is the essence of all 
absurdity, and that creeds are really and properly subject 
to rational adjudication. The great lever of the Keforma- 
tion was religion, and religion carried dogmatical theology 
along with it. Many external abuses and corruptions 
which for three centuries had been objects of ridicule or 
indignation, including several of the more obviously idola- 
trous practices of the Roman church, were discontinued, 
but its creeds and books remained. Dissatisfied with a 

1 " Mortuus est Dei films ; prorsus credibile est, quia ineptum est ; et 
sepultus resurrexit ; certum est quia impossibile." Tertull. de Carne Christi 
ch. v. 



22 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

hollow ecclesiastical mechanism, the soul rushed eagerly to 
find a better assurance of salvation with Christ and with 
God. But in making the appeal it was obliged to seek 
external guidance, and this could be immediately supplied 
only out of the shreds and remnants of the old system. 
It seemed in the first place absolutely necessary to have 
some visible standard or rule to replace the repudiated 
authority of the church. The stores of extraneous tradi- 
tions which, ever since the decay of scholasticism had been 
ransacked by religious men for this purpose, the Cabbala, 
the Platonic or Aristotelian philosophies, could be appre- 
ciated only by few ; generally speaking, Pagan culture 
seemed alien to religion ; and the book of nature, without 
any sure clue to its interpretation, led only to the mysticism 
and magic of Eeuchlin or Agrippa. Popular feeling under 
these circumstances had no resource but in the venerable 
traditions of the Bible ; a book claiming equal or even 
higher antiquity than the church itself, and which, though 
part of its own machinery, had in times of heresy and 
danger been always distrusted by it as a possible rival. 
The religious strength of Protestantism, mingled with an 
intellectual weakness, which, unreservedly adopting the 
maxim of belief in absurdity, went far beyond the limits 
of Catholicism itself in depreciating the reason, and in the 
self-abasement ascribing nothing to merit, everything to 
grace. In the exuberance of its faith, added to the grow- 
ing desire to give form and consistency to a new establish- 
ment, it adopted the greater number of the old dogmas. 
The first edition of Melancthon's " Loci, " published 
a.d. 1521, dwells exclusively on the great soteriological 
doctrines concerning the nature of law, sin, grace, free will, 
faith, and justification. The Augsburg " Confession" evinces 
a still fluctuating opinion, and it is characteristic that 
Melancthon was busily employed to the last moment in 
making corrections and alterations in it. At last these 
provisional and merely apologetic manifestoes were felt to 



REFUTATION OF DOGMA. 23 

be insufficient. As in early Christianity, the progress of 
heresy made it necessary to define the barriers of ortho- 
doxy, to legislate rather than plead, and to give the new 
faith a semblance of historical continuity with the old. 
Hence the indiscriminate appropriation of catholic theology 
in subsequent editions and confessions; and though Pro- 
testants, recognising in Scripture alone the rule of faith, 
nominally accepted the confessions only on the hypothesis 
of their being Scriptural,, the condition was practically 
forgotten, articles and confessional interpretations being 
taken in Catholic fashion as peremptory and conclusive. 

Refutation of Dogma.. 

But the force of free spiritualism, though suppressed in 
the main developments of Protestantism, was working 
unseen, and was ever ready to emerge wherever discourage- 
ment relaxed, or force of character and intelligence insisted 
on a hearing. When confessions each claiming to be 
strictly Scriptural were found to vary, and Lutheran " Con- 
substantiation" proved incompatible with the Calvinistic 
" spiritual presence" in spite of the common sanction of 
the Holy Ghost, there was an obvious call for the inter- 
ference of the only umpire that the nature of the case 
admitted. The first self-emancipating efforts were little 
more than instinctive ebullitions of irregular feeling, akin 
to the fanaticism of the '■' Brethren of the Free Spirit" in 
former ages ; and Melancthon was greatly astonished by 
the sudden appearance at Wyttenberg of a band of excited 
mechanics, demanding sweeping changes in creed and 
ritual, a new church and a new baptism. A more serious 
protest against the theoretical impurities of Protestantism 
was that of the Socinians, who, disclaiming confessionalism, 
and placing genuine religion on a moral basis, employed a 
forced Scripture exegesis to get rid of the more obviously 
irrational doetrines, such as the Trinity, free justification, 



24 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

and the atonement; and so far might be said to have 
completed the work of criticism, were the logical refutation 
<of dogma alone sufficient to extinguish it. To suppose 
that in the one true God there are three persons, each of 
whom singly is that only God, is to contradict Scripture as 
well as reason, said the Socinians ; it confounds substantive 
identity with generic identity ; and still more absurd is 
the idea of combining two contradictory and incompatible 
natures, one mutable and finite, the other immutable and 
infinite, in one person ; it is like mixing fire and water, or, 
as Spinoza said, like a circle taking the nature of a square. 
And then the gross extravagances of the notion of vicarious 

* satisfaction ! An absolutely good and omnipotent Being 
unable or unwilling to forgive freely what was commonly 
represented under the aspect of a personal affront ; 1 or 
forgiving it after having received his due, when ample 
satisfaction had made forgiveness superfluous ! A Being 
absolutely just and good not only permitting, but sponta- 
neously contriving a commutation of the innocent for the 
guilty, as if moral merit and demerit were transferable 
commodities like money payments ; — and effecting a re- 
conciliation between his justice and his goodness by doing 
what was obviously the very reverse of just or good I 
Why, asked the Socinians, was vicarious suffering inflicted 
in the death of Christ, when the communicable merits of 
his life had already anticipated its object ; especially 
if, as asserted by St. Paul, 2 neither of them, alone or 
in combination, was sufficient to effect the purpose in- 
tended? And, moreover, how could the merit of Christ, 
considered as man, accrue for the benefit of others, if, as 
declared in Scripture, his obedience to the extremity of 

, death was no more than his own proper duty to his Father ; 
or how could his temporary suffering, followed as it was by 

1 The sense attached by the church to the notion of sin. 

2 Because, according to 1 Cor. xv. 17, without the resurrection, the death 
of Christ had been inefficient. 



REFUTATION OF DOGMA. 25 

triumphant exaltation, expiate the infinite forfeit of in- 
numerable sinners ? Expiation must be supposed to imply 
some proportion between the satisfaction and the forfeit; 
but there can be no proportion between the transient suffer- 
ing of one, and the eternal deaths of all mankind ; and the 
disproportion is not to be made good by any attributive 
dignity of a particular person, since Scripture itself says 
that there is no distinction of persons with God ; or if the 
virtue of the atonement be considered infinite in conse- 
quence of Christ's divinity, we are then presented with the 
anomaly of God making a propitiation to himself, and 
accepting as a satisfaction that which was already his own. 
The Socinians were followed in a less resolute spirit by 
the Arminians, and also by the pietists and mystics, 
claiming the rights of individual religious feeling in oppo- 
sition to the renewed scholasticism of the seventeenth cen- 
tury; and with far more unflinching consistency by the 
Deists, who resolved all religion into duty, based on the 
natural creed of God, virtue, immortality. No one pre- 
tended to question Christianity itself, or to impugn it as 
irrational. They professed only to separate what appeared 
to be its true essence from its incidental corruptions and 
forms ; either denying that, after making due allowances 
and distinctions, it contained or could contain any mysteries 
at all ; or at least that it contained anything of conse- 
quence incapable of being discovered by human reason, 
and of being proved by rational evidence. Reason now 
began to reverse the ancillary relation to theology assigned 
to it during so many ages. Its claims were enforced by 
the Cartesians and Spinoza, by Lord Herbert of Cherbury l 
and Locke, — by the one as sole revelation to man's spirit, 
by the others as sole test and interpreter of revelation. 

1 The reader should be on his guard against the misrepresentations of Mr. 
Hallam (Literary History, Vol. ii., pp. 364, 381, Edition 1854) in regard to 
Lord Herbert, whom he accuses of damning those heathens who do not accept 
his five articles ; but the passage referred to says nothing of the kind : Lord 
Herbert contends not for the damnation of the heathen, but their salvation. 



26 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

" That which is external to us," said the Cartesian Boell, 
" we can only know and judge by means of the faculty 
within ;" — " he who takes away reason to make room for 
revelation," said Locke, " puts out the light of both, and 
does much the same as one who should persuade us to put 
out our eyes in order the better to discern an invisible star 
by a telescope." How are we to know that God exists 
except through the attestation of our natural faculties ? 
And if we have not this prior assurance, in whose name 
shall we be told about faith and revelation? The very 
nature of revelation, as well as the language of Scripture, 
assumes God's existence to be already recognised and 
granted ; indeed, reason alone, as Lord Herbert said, 1 
gives the seal of authority to authority itself. Modern 
philosophy began with two radically inconsistent profes- 
sions, — independence of thought, and implicit reverence 
for dogma. But there was already an ominous ambiguity 
in the guarded declaration of Descartes at the end of his 
" Principia :" " Hsec omnia turn ecclesise catholicee aucto- 
ritati turn prudentiorum judiciis submitto ; nihilque ab 
ullo credi velim nisi quod ipsi evidens et invicta ratio 
persuadebit." Malebranche and Gassendi upheld, as church- 
men, the church beliefs; but the more consistent Carte- 
sianism of Spinoza proceeded to claim for philosophy all 
that had hitherto been the exclusive property of faith ; to 
say that everything purporting to be given by revelation 
or prophecy was also given, and better given, by the 
universal light of reason ; to broach an ethical system 
claiming to confer a salvation of its own, consisting in 
freedom, happiness, and communion with God, quite inde- 
pendently of creeds and church qualifications. Henceforth 
the supremacy of reason, as the necessary corollary of 

1 " Ipsa auctoritatis auctoritas ex ratione petenda est." " If," lie added, 
" the faculties of the soul became depraved through sin, the faculty of belief 
must share the contamination ; if, on the contrary, either by nature or 
through the effects of redemption they are still sound, why not allow reason its 
due ?" 



REFUTATION OF DOGMA, 27 

Protestant principles, became more and more unqualified 
and complete. The distinction apologetically revived by 
Leibnitz of " above and against reason," as well as that 
contended for by his adversary Bayle as to an assumed 
contrariety between human reason and divine, — both alike 
proved to be quibbling and untenable. For the admitted 
incompatibility of the creed with human reason gives a 
prima facie right to infer its incompatibility with all 1 } 
reason ; and if, as allowed in the course of the argument 
by Leibnitz, there is no difference in kind between one 
degree of reason and another, it is idle to assume that what 
is humanly absurd must be transcendentally and divinely 
reasonable, and the attempted distinction resolves itself / 
into another form of the paradox of Tertullian, making 4 
incomprehensibility and absurdity the sufficient motives of 
belief. And, indeed, such shifts were already an anachro- 
nism. The shallow rivulet of theology which had stag- 
nated in confessional dogmatisms began to be overtaken 
by the general flow of the Reformation. The wider in- 
fluences of the great movement, the discovery of new 
worlds in space and time, the revival of the old civilization 
with increased facilities for spreading and communicating 
it, emancipated the medieval intellect and cleared the path 
of scientific enterprise. Among the inevitable results of 
verified science and independent thought was a great 
change in the ideas of the world and of God ; and that not 
merely from an increasing experimental assurance of the 
dominion of immutable order in physical nature, but also 
from those simple d priori considerations which had already 
emboldened Spinoza to place the religion of philosophy above 
that of theology, and which must occur to every one who, i 
detaching his mind from common associations, addresses 
himself to think seriously on the Absolute and Infinite. 
Leibnitz strove hard to preserve the theistic postulates 
always so dear to Christianity, and which indeed were the 
basis of all its conceptions and formulas. But it was seen 



28 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

that these, in their ordinary acceptation, as implying tran- 
sient acts of creation, exceptional interference, etc., are in- 
consistent with absoluteness ; and hence the attempt of the 
author of the "pre-established harmony" to maintain the 
hypothetical unchangeableness of an absolute though super- 
mundane God, substituting for his discredited occasional 
agency one eternal act implanted in nature from the begin- 
ning, and only coming out in the phenomenal order of 
things as mutable and successive. But in such an hypo- 
thesis theistic personality becomes an unmeaning abstrac- 
tion, and though reserved in name, its value to the theo- 
logian is lost. For what is personality divested of all its 
usual consequences and demonstrations; or what theology, 
when supernatural interference is excluded ? And indeed 
what authorises us, it may be asked, in applying the idea 
of personality, a notion engendered amid the finite objects 
of the senses, to the infinite God ; or at least in advancing 
such a notion as an objective truth or obligatory creed, 
instead of the mere subjective device or convenience of 
our imperfect faculties ? Personality is inconceivable 
without free consciousness, action, and volition ; but an 
agent standing aloof from the world, advancing from voli- 
tion to volition, and oscillating between activity and re- 
pose, is not absolute ; he is a partial and changeful being, 
becoming at one time what he is not at another ; in short, 
sinks into the finite and conditioned. 

Hesitating Attitude of Theology. 

Confronted with these considerations theology began to 
shew those signs of hesitation which are already half-way 
to indifference and unbelief. " Rational supernaturalism" 
or latitudinarianism, meant orthodoxy shrinking in sceptical 
misgiving and secretly rationalistic ; philosophy trying to 
look religious, and religion pretending to be as philoso- 
phical as it dared ; desiring the credit of knowledge, but 



HESITATING ATTITUDE OF THEOLOGY. 29 

skulking under false colours, and unable to surrender unre- 
servedly the effete symbolism commanding popular homage. 
The Arminians softened the harsh exegesis of the 
Socinians, and while, in regard to the Trinity for instance, 
trying to hold a middle way between acceptance and re- 
jection by subordinating the persons, betrayed their So- 
cinian leanings in deprecating vain disputes about unin- 
telligible mysteries, and calling for a modest acquiescence 
in Che " words of Scripture." They admitted Christ's two 
natures as a fact, but declined explaining, or even accept- 
ing it as an indispensible article of faith ; and while in 
deference to several Scripture passages they acknowledged 
the doctrine of the atonement, they limited its meaning to 
what they called " Acceptilation," a voluntary capitulation 
or conditional condonation on the part of God ; not con- 
sidering that if God gratuitously forgave a very large 
proportion of human sin, he might as well be presumed to 
have freely forgiven the whole. The Supernaturalists 
followed the example of the Arminians, smoothing down as 
far as possible the asperities of dogma, but evading the last 
inevitable concessions ; not observing that by giving up 
part they jeopardized all ; that from the moment when they 
began to plead, modify, and distinguish, the citadel of 
faith was surrendered. Some leaned to Arianism, some 
to Sabellianism ; some even went beyond Biblical limits in 
ascribing the Trinity to Platonic influences, or referred to 
the disgraceful quarrels of Oriental bishops and councils as 
evincing but too clearly its mundane origin. Ere long it 
became usual to give historical lectures on dogma, to 
analyse it anatomically, unfeelingly discussing its patho- 
logical symptoms, and recounting the varieties of opinion 
successively assumed by each article. Tollner and others 
repeated the Socinian refutation of vicarious satisfaction, 
1 reducing the atonement to little more than influence of 
example ; J. G. Flatt explained the Trinitarian problem 
as a differential equation ; Doderlein, pressed by the difli- 



30 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

culties of the " unio naturarum," took refuge in Nestorian 
heresy, talking about a friendly and confidential relation 
between the Logos and Jesus ; Eeinhard's limitation of the 
" Communicatio Idiomatum," according to which each of 
the two natures assumed the properties of the other only so 
far as allowed by its own peculiar character, was a virtual 
abandonment of the whole dogma ; in short, there was a 
general tendency of approximation to the position of the 
Socinians and of Spinoza ; all parties tried to eliminate 
mysteries and miracles as much as possible, and to resolve 
them by aid of the so-called "Accommodation" theory 
into mere adventitious forms of thought and language. A 
dexterous veering between extremes was the sole resource 
of a system which, helplessly tossed on the horns of a 
dilemma, was obliged to change sides and alter its tone 
with farcical rapidity. On one hand it was said, "Why 
waste time on speculative matters, instead of attending to 
the one thing needful?" on the other, "Why refuse to 
believe a thing because you cannot explain it ; why, when 
so ignorant of things plain and palpable to the senses, 
affect a superfluous scrupulosity about divine mysteries?" 
Each plea was put forward in turn, either with Arminians, 
Deists, etc., advancing moral essentials so as to veil theo- 
retical paradoxes, or else following the common theological 
manoeuvre of dictatorially silencing reason by proclaiming 
its feebleness. Random appeals to the sheltering vague- 
ness of Scripture, shewed a general impatience of the yoke 
of creed, and the fretful ejaculations of theologians, as when, 
for instance, Doderlein denounced the whole subject as a 
wilderness of thorns and briars, 1 betrayed their real anti- 
pathy. And when Lessing uttered a solemn farewell to 
orthodoxy, and Kant, following Spinoza's example, formed 
an independent religion of reason, dogma could only survive 

1 " Devenimus in campum quern dudum horruimus, satis amplum, sed 
Bpinis et difficultatibus obsitum perplenumque, — quas intercidere, vel si par- 
cendum est sacrse sylvse, theologis colendas et extricandas, multis bonis viris 
consultum videtur." Institutio Theol. Christ., p. 787. 



HESITATING ATTITUDE OF THEOLOGY. 



31 



as a legal fiction, or, at most, a speculative symbol, either 
as aptly expressing the wants of the " practical reason," 
or typifying the mystical yearnings of the pious heart. 

There are some silent changes of opinion which are 
far more momentous in their consequences than any overt 
revolutions of history. Such was the great idealistic 
reaction of " Romanticism," which towards the close of the 
last century reopened the deep sources of religion in 
nature and the human soul. But this religion was incom- 
patible with traditional theology. Theology, considered 
as a system of supernatural doctrine, can subsist only in a 
universe where miracle bridges over the sundered provinces 
of nature and God. Rationalism broke down the bridge, 
leaving the world temporarily godless ; it rudely denied to 
a theistic God the power of miraculous interference, and 
found a helpless inanimate universe left upon its hands. 
Idealism filled up the gulf by restoring divinity to nature ; 
but in so doing it subverted the intermediary diplomatic 
agency which had so long been transmitting messages over 
an imaginary void, and recording the interventional opera- 
tions of a supermundane Being. The attitude of ra- 
tionalism to creed-dogmas had been one of antipathy and 
denial ; idealism, which is but rationalism in an enlarged 
and nobler form, arbitrarily appropriated their meaning, 
and unhistorically claimed them for its own. Its object, 
instead of destroying, was rather to preserve whatever it 
could assimilate and transfigure; and thus the ideas of 
incarnation and revelation passed into the language of 
philosophy as symbols of divine immanency. But the 
parodies of dogma set up by German speculation must not 
be supposed to have been a resuscitation of it. 1 A bag- 
piper does not become a Scotchman by a mere assumption 

1 E. Zeller, in the Tubingen Journal, vol. ix., p. 99, calls this a reinstate- 
ment of dogma by means of a double negation ; first, a negation of its truth ; 
then the negation of that negation by substituting a speculative meaning, and 
thus gaining the credit of sound belief and philosophical profundity at the 
same time. 



32 



GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 



of the kilt, nor were the Anglo-Saxons converted into 
Christians because Augustine concealed Christian relics 
under the heathen altars. These fanciful revivals of 
dogma were only ingenious allegories, a quaint philoso- 
phical masquerade, differing little from ancient gnosticism 
except in the more distinct consciousness of figurative 
substitution ; they were but a more or less forced applica- 
tion of ancient formulae to illustrate, and by a tacit assump- 
tion of " reality" to prove, some speculative crotchet of 
the writer. Lessing's theory of converting " Offenba- 
rungs-wahrheiten" into " Vernunfts-wahrheiten " became the 
source of many illusions, and assumed a process of distil- 
lation scarcely consistent with possibility or honesty. 
For although all religions may contain germs of truth and 
reason, it is not always easy, except with approximative 
vagueness, to distinguish essence from form, or to combine 
with any certainty the historical with what is thought to 
be the " true" meaning. The task of philosophy in regard 
to dogma is not so much to decipher its intent, to provide 
it with artificial crutches, or to torture it into a semblance 
of truth by expounding it in new meanings ; but rather to 
point out the historical circumstances of its origin in nature 
and the human mind. 

Absolute Miracle, 

One of the subjects on which plain speaking was most 
difficult, and at the same time most important, was that of 
miracle. There is of course a radical antagonism between 
j the miraculous assumptions of theology and the axioms of 
science. But until the order of nature was clearly and 
certainly established, there could be no distinct apprehen- 
sion of miracle in the absolute sense as an interruption of 
that order. In popular acceptation miracles were not 
infractions of established laws, but only wonderful occur- 
rences. The childish intellect loves wonder, but is im- 



ABSOLUTE MIRACLE. 33 

patient of explanation. It little heeds the ingenious 
machinery moving from hour to hour with constancy and 
regularity ; it is only when the artist checks the wheels or 
strikes the bell exceptionally for its amusement that the 
manifestation is hailed as a success. This is the way in 
which pious people usually regard manifestations of divine 
agency in the government of the world. That which has 
no obvious natural cause is hastily referred to a super- 
natural one ; and no occurrences are thought religiously 
significant save those which, creating surprise and astonish- 
ment, appear to claim to be considered as special provi- 
dences. So far the notion of miracle is merely relative. 
Being unaccompanied with any clear consciousness of a 
universe of order, it implies no clear notion of a breach of 
order. But the case is different when an intelligent study 
of nature has engendered settled convictions as to the strict 
continuity of causation. Miracle then changes its mean- 
ing ; or rather it becomes unmeaning and self-contradictory, 
as implying imperfection in a perfect government, disorder 
in inevitable order, something overlooked and unexpected 
in the plans of supreme wisdom, requiring interpolation 
and revision. No such absurdity was seriously contem- 
plated by antiquity ; and even the loose notions about 
divine interference vulgarly entertained were often more 
accurately limited or even repudiated by deeper thinkers. 
A general idea of regularity in nature 1 was suggested by 
common appearances to the earliest reflection ; and though 
the notion was vague and imperfect, a mere inference roughly 
formed by way of analogy from human law, still it sufficed 
to give a salutary check to the superstitious fondness for 
wonders and signs. Thus Philo speaks of the Mosaic 
miracles as mere child's play in comparison with those of 



1 Thus Philo of Alexandria, speaks of the " chain of universal unity and 
harmony, the eternal law of the eternal God, forming the impregnable sub- 
struction of the All." Gfrorer's Philo, pp. 197, 339, etc. ; and see Sophocles 
DEd. Tyr., 865, and Antigone, 454. 






34 



GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 



creation ; 1 and St. Augustin ridicules the vulgar stupidity 
of those who, overlooking greater wonders, measured the 
capacities of the universe by the narrow estimate of human 
experience. 2 By the Fathers, and especially Augustin, the 
term miracle is generally confined to the relative sense, in 
denoting something which, however extraordinary, is still 
natural ; " Nature and the will of God," says Augustin, 
" are one ; so that miracles are not contradictory to nature, 
but only to our limited knowledge of nature." 3 The early 
diffusion of Christianity really depended not so much on 
miraculous displays, as on what was called the " demon- 
stration of the spirit," i.e., the aptitude of the doctrine to 
the natural predisposition or mental susceptibilities of the 
convert ; 4 and, as Origen remarks, 5 whatever the influence 
of such displays over cotemporaries, they could not have 
the same force in later times, especially when their concep- 
tional or mythical character began to be suspected. Their 
power to convince was moreover from the first complicated 
and impeded by the general belief in dsemoniacal agency 
and sorcery, so that an ulterior criterion was wanted to 

1 De Vit& Mosis, vol. ii., p. 114. 

2 De Civitate Dei, xxi. 8. 

3 Ibid. ; and " De militate Credendi" 16. " Contra Faustum, 
xxiii. 3. All the excuses and palliations of miracle used in modern theo- 
logy may be found in Origen and Augustin : such as the substitution of 
relative for absolute ; the distinction of supernatural and unnatural (Origen 
against Celsus t. 23) ; the hypothesis of preformation (De Genesi ad litteram, 
ix. 32). The obscurity of Augustin arises from his identification of nature 
and divine will being incomplete ; from the will, although admitted to be 
"wisely omnipotent," being still external and capricious in its imputed action ; 
the ideas of necessity and immanency are wanting ; an external will is 
always at hand to thwart or control the internal; and hence nature's ordinary 
course as known to experience is occasionally distinguished from the teleo- 
logical or theological idea of nature, — a distinction which afterwards gave 
opportunity for the definitive opposition of God and nature as exemplified in 
the scholastic definitions, — "Miraculum est quod fit praeter ordinem totius 
naturae creatae ;" — " Miraculum est talis Dei operatio qua naturae leges ad 
ordinem et conservationem totius universi spectantes revera suspenduntur." 

4 No individual can be properly said to create a new religion. Wherever 
such a phenomenon appears, it existed unconsciously in the minds and feelings 
of the people, until genius performed the part of midwife, and in the fullness 
of time summoned it into visible existence. 

5 Comment, on John ii. 28. Comp. De Princip., iv. 2. 



ABSOLUTE MIRACLE. 



35 



distinguish true miracles from false or diabolical ones. 
This could only be found in the moral character of the 
work or the beneficent tendencies of the accompanying 
doctrine; and the Fathers were thus for several reasons 
induced to disparage mere signs or external displays of 
power, and to appeal to the doctrine to prove the miracles 
on which it was ostensibly based. This, however, was to 
refer the entire question of revelation to the paramount 
adjudication of conscience, implying a subordination of 
external to internal criteria obviously very dangerous to ' 
dogmatical theology ; and Protestant theology was obliged 
to lay the more stress on the primitive miracles in pro- 
portion as it repudiated later ones. This latter tendency 
became still stronger where Protestantism was driven from 
its originally assumed basis in the pretended support of 
the "inner witness;" and the Socinians and Arminians, 
who first discarded the resource, found themselves in the 
awkward dilemma of being compelled, in their super- 
natural assumptions, to insist especially on the very 
postulate which their reason led them, as far as possible, 
to extenuate and abridge. 

But it was only through the more perfect develop- 
ment of philosophy in modern times that men became 
emboldened entirely to deny the reality and possibility ' 
of miracle. The revolution of thought was gradual. 
The possibility could not be denied so long as nature 
was deemed to be capriciously animated, or to be de- 
pendent on a capricious will external to it. There was 
an interval of transition between the magical and the truly 
scientific view of nature, which was occupied by " natural 
magic ; " a name indicating that intermediate state of 
thought when superstition begins to give way to curio- 
sity, and when nature is found to be, to a certain extent, 
empirically subject to human control, though as yet very 
imperfectly accessible to human intelligence. Even under 
these circumstances, however, the Aristotelian Pomponatius 



36 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

asserted nature's general immutability and the relativity 
of pretended miracles. 1 

But it was Spinoza who first clearly exposed the 
irreconcileable nature of the conflict between theology 
and philosophy on this vital subject. The impossibility 
of miracle might be argued in two ways ; either as 
a postulate of reason, or as an inference from uniform 
experience. The general result of the speculations of the 
Renaissance had been to widen the gulf already opened by 
nominalistic scepticism between theology and science, by 
creating a definitive dualism of the spiritual and material, 
and separating the teleological aspect of nature from the 
mechanical or scientific. The severance resulted from 
rash efforts to effect union ; and so long as it continued, an 
arbitrary external teleology sustained the notion of miracle, 
in spite of the general admission of nature's provincial 
uniformity. It was impossible to contemplate the uni- 
verse without a God ; equally so to deny to such a Being 
the power of occasional interference ; and hence " occa- 
sionalism" availed itself of the opportunity to overleap 
the pretended barrier by assuming one department of 
nature at least, i.e., the phenomena of the human soul, 
to be a series of incessant miracles. Science, however, 
was gradually closing up the crevices or seeming blanks 
affording openings for miraculous interpolations ; and a 
new relation between the contrasted spheres gradually arose 
from the time when man despairing of a direct influence over 
living nature by his will, addressed himself to study it as 
a dead thing, or chain of causation, to be analysed and 
controlled by his reason. A new intellectual empire 
tending evidently to universality was then founded within 
the sphere of those ascertained uniformities of coexistence 
and succession which by an allowable, though not abso- 
lutely perfect, analogy were called "laws of nature," 

1 De Incantationibus — "Non sunt miracula quia sunt totaliter contra 
naturam,— sed pro tanto dicuntur miracula quia insueta." 



ABSOLUTE MIRACLE, 37 

beyond which unexplained phenomena, however provi- 
sionally anomalous and perplexing, seemed only as an 
unoccupied territory awaiting appropriation ; so that in 
this way the probability of miracles became infinitely 
attenuated, while the presumption of nature's undeviating 
uniformity, growing continually with the growth of S 
knowledge, presented itself to the educated mind with ; 
increasing, and at last overwhelming force. Yet so long 
as the world was thought to be governed by the will of 
an external Ruler, its uniformity would necessarily be 
still in a measure contingent and dependent on the 
character of that Ruler : scientific induction could never 
be made absolutely complete, nor miracles pronounced to 
be absolutely impossible. But the outstanding possibility 
was excluded by the argument of Spinoza, that in the 
view of reason there cannot be two crossing and contending 
wills or principles in God ; that nature's law is itself the 
continuous manifestation and accomplishment of necessary 
and immanent perfection ; and that to suppose anything 
really contradicting this perfection, or performed by the 
Deity in opposition to it, were to make Him contradict 
Himself. Miracles could therefore be admitted only in a 
subjective or notional sense. The notion arose from con- 
sidering God and nature as two separate agencies operating 
exclusively of each other; so that nature's action meant 
divine repose, and divine activity a suspension of the 
laws of nature. If both powers be recognised as acting 
necessarily and unitedly, miracle ceases to have any 
objective meaning, and is really only a showy costume 
invented to disguise the inanity of human ignorance. 
The vulgar presumptuously change their real ignorance 
into a pretence of positive knowledge ; first, by denying 
the existence of a natural cause, and then gratuitously 
assuming a supernatural one. Miracle thus sinks into 
the general category of the natural ; it is a mere myth, a 
name or mental hallucination mistaken for a reality; 



38 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

expressing only by the difference of phrase man's igno- 
rance of natural causes. Even were there any meaning 
in saying that a phenomenon having no natural cause 
is caused by God, it would be impossible, continued 
Spinoza, for us to see or assert it to be so ; to do this 
conclusively would require an absolutely exhaustive know- 
ledge of natural causes ; since otherwise there must always 
remain a certain possibility that the supposed miracle may 
after all have been caused naturally. But considering 
that such knowledge is altogether beyond our reach, it 
follows that, even supposing miracles to be objectively 
possible, they cannot by us be recognized. 1 

Spinoza proceeded to shew that miracle, far from satis- 
factorily establishing belief in the existence of an infinite 
Being, tends, on the contrary, to unsettle it, as contra- 
dicting those universal ideas or laws through which alone 
such a Being can be apprehended by us. He also ex- 
plained the natural origin of the miraculous narratives 
in the Bible, shewing that they arose in great measure 
from the inexact and figurative mode of expression usual 
among the Hebrew writers ; particularly their habit of 
ascribing naturally-produced events directly to the first 
cause, and the universal tendency of men to mingle their 
own impressions and erroneous judgments with statements 
of fact, especially where the facts are above their compre- 
hension and complicated with religious interests. 

But these inferences were too much in advance of prevail- 
ing prejudice to be immediately accepted; and the more 
conciliatory philosophy of Leibnitz, though later in date, 

1 Spinoza had argued, in corresponding with Oldenburg, that to adduce 
miracles in proof of religion was only to explain the obscure by the more 
obscure, to cite our ignorance as a source of knowledge. And when Olden- 
burg asked in reply whether modesty does not require us to believe that God 
can do things transcending human comprehension, Spinoza rejoined that 
modesty equally requires us to admit that there is much surpassing our com- 
prehension in nature ; and that since we cannot without arrogance presume to 
determine how far its forces extend, or what transcends the limits of its power, 
it is better, in presence of an allegation which we can neither explain nor 
admit, not to talk of miracles, but to suspend our judgment. 



ABSOLUTE MIRACLE. 39 

took precedence of that of Spinoza in popular estimation* 
The views of Leibnitz were really not less opposed to 
common belief than those of Spinoza ; but they were less 
clearly and consistently stated ; they had a double aspect, 
and seeming to flatter theological prejudice with a shew of 
compromise, became, in conjunction with the coarser 
theory of Locke, 1 the basis of that mongrel production of 
brass without and clay within called " modern super- 
naturalism. 2 The theory of "pre-established harmony" 
really excluded that of intervention ; but then the 
phraseology of interference was overtly preserved, and 
a pretence of orthodoxy maintained by the hypothesis 
of "preformation," and by the revived distinction of 
" supernatural " and " unnatural." Miracles, say the 
advocates of "preformation," are part of nature's original 
plan, though appearing phenomenally as exceptions; and 

1 Locke, while assigning paramount supremacy to reason, admits a "possible 
enlargement of reason" by means of a revelation proved to be from God by 
testimony or other evidence. 

2 When, at the outset of modern philosophy, matter and mind had been 
separated, and nature as it were provisionally killed for the purposes of 
scientific analysis, a consideration of the phenomena of man's intellectual life 
soon shewed the necessity of at least partially reanimating it. "Occasionalism" 
was the first coarse expedient adopted for this purpose ; it made man's mental 

life a continued miracle, a series of galvanic jerks or interferences on the part L . 
of God. But miracle is only a confession of ignorance, a negation of philo- 
sophy : it were more rational and honest to confess that ignorance at once, and 
to say that matter and mind actually coexist and co-operate, though we know- 
not how ; that the supposed separation of the two substances is a gratuitous 
hypothesis ; and that if God be invoked to reunite them when separated, we 
may as well deny the separation, and believe with Spinoza that all things are 
naturally one in God. In short, the pantheistic immanency of God is the last 
word of philosophy and reason ; but then the peculiar God of theology 
vanishes ; and there are several essential religious ideas, — such as freedom and 
moral responsibility, — usually connected with the notion of a personal God, — 
with which the idea of immanency seems at first sight to militate. Here 
Leibnitz strives to serve two masters, and to make an apportionment between, 
reason and philosophy. His dynamical theory is formed to unite matter and 
mind, while his "pre-established harmony" resolves the " Deus ex machina " 
of Occasionalism into an immanent energy or instinct implanted from the 
beginning in nature, so that individual existences are like a series of clocks 
originally adjusted to each other, and going infallibly alike. But then, after 
having thus combined God with the universe, he again inconsistently assigns 
to Him a separate individuality and personality as Creator, etc., etc., at the 
same time claiming for Him an omnipresence inconsistent with personality. - 



40 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

this conception Mr. Mansel, in a recent essay (Aids to 
Faith, pp. 22, 23), pronounces to be the truest and most 
reverent view of the subject. But whatever was originally 
^ deposited in nature must be a part of nature, however long 
its action be deferred, or however unexpected its overt 
appearance ; and as to the plea of " supernatural," this 
obviously reaches only to what appears supernatural to us, 
i.e., something not yet understood or humanly apprehended 
in. its natural sequence. In short, preformed and super- 
natural miracles are only relative ones, i.e., no miracles ; 
they are merely natural events suggesting the notion of 
miracle to unscientific minds through some peculiarity or 
strangeness in the mode of their occurrence. Leibnitz also 
dwelt on the distinction between contingent and necessary 
truth. He argued that although no revelation contradicting 
a necessary truth or axiom of mathematics could be 
accepted, there was a difference as to contingent truths, 
such as are physical laws ; these, as resulting from 
positive appointment, might be miraculously modified by 
the will which appointed them; and therefore there was 
no reason for disbelieving accounts attesting such modifi- 
cations, supposing the testimony to be adequate. But this 
plea leaves miracle an open question to be settled by 
ulterior evidence ; and indeed the whole argument of the 
theodicee is limited to a plea of possibility. But if, 
according to the view of Leibnitz, every fact in nature 
is part of a general harmony or order founded on moral 
necessity, or on the principles of optimism, any act of 
arbitrary power disturbing a portion of that order must 
be a violation of the whole ; and hence miracles, in the 
ordinary sense of the term, are seen to be irrational, 
immoral, and impossible. There cannot be two kinds of 
natural law or two kinds of reason ; the difference is on]y 
in man's faculties, and his wider or narrower appreciation 
of one law. The distinction of unnatural and super- 
natural leads only to the inference of relativity ; it means 



ABSOLUTE MIRACLE. 41 

that if we possessed higher intelligence we should recog- 
nise supposed miracles as natural events ; but that in the 
meantime we are at full liberty to take advantage of our 
present ignorance, and to speak and argue as if they were 
absolutely miraculous. 1 

When reason and science had thus already accumulated 
many convincing proofs of nature's actual and necessary 
uniformity, history began to corroborate the inference by 
shewing that in fact it has always presumably been so ; 
that there is really no satisfactory evidence to the con- 
trary; that what the human mind in its elementary 
untutored condition was content to accept as miracle was C 
in reality only fanciful exaggeration, the suggestion of s 
enthusiasm or credulity ; a suggestion which, though 
credited in rude times' and obscure corners, always vanishes 
before the light of civilization and publicity. Miracles 
finally cease to be credited when, instead of being merely 
denied as inconceivable, they begin to be comprehended 
and understood ; understood, that is, in their psychological 
origin as creations of human fancy. Events being always 
seen, more or" less, through a medium of prepossession, 
it is essential for the student of history to become 
accurately acquainted with the nature of the preposses- 
sions by which recorded facts have been modified and 

1 Dr. Trench's argument about miracles rests on this distinction ; the Dean 
appears not to see that by conceding Spinoza's premises, namely, that " the 
laws of nature are themselves the continuous will of God, excluding all 
wilfulness," — (p. 10) he is logically driven to the same conclusion ; since on 
this understanding there can be nothing "supernatural" or higher than 
nature. It little avails to talk about (p. 15) " a higher and purer nature 
coming down out of the world of untroubled harmonies into this world of 
discords, and momentarily bringing it back again into harmony ;" or to 
pretend that " miracle exemplifies a lower law giving place to a higher." 
Are there then two laws or wills in God capriciously alternating with each 
other to perplex the thoughtful, and interposing their interjectional freaks to 
astonish stupidity and inattention by a " speaking to them in particular ? " 
(p. 11). Dr. Trench first says " above nature " and then a "higher nature." 
Is no Zulu Caffre forthcoming to hold him to the alternative of natural 
or supernatural ? to insist that if the divine will be one, the argument fails ; 
or if there be two, one overlapping and intruding into the other, such intru- 
sion must amount to violation ? 



42 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

distorted, sometimes even suggested and originated; the 
probability of their having been so being always propor- 
tioned to the natural improbability of the supposed fact, 
the strength of the prepossession, and the weakness of the 
testimony. And there is something in the very nature 
of testimony which renders it practically impossible to 
prove miracle by its means. All evidence consists in a 
balance of probabilities ; and Hume's argument, denying 
not only that miracles have been, but that they ever can 
be, satisfactorily proved by human testimony, forms an 
important corollary of their logical refutation. The 
veracity of testimony is a common experience, but not 
a universal one ; testimony is often dishonest, insufficient, 
or inaccurate ; especially when influenced by religious 
zeal, the general passion for the marvellous, or by other 
motives. But the experience of nature's uniformity is 
constant and universal ; so considered, no evidence from 
testimony can overthrow it; the weaker evidence yields 
to the stronger; it must always be less likely that a 
miracle occurred than that the testimony is mistaken. 
In short, experience matured by scientific education rises 
above the sphere of testimony as claiming a right to 
control it; and though not warranting a denial of the 
< abstract possibility of miracles, it certainly justifies the 
assertion that all accounts of miracles must be suspicious 
and untrustworthy. 

Mr. Mansel, in his recent attempt to controvert these 
positions (Aids to Faith, 1862, p. 7, seq.), uninten- 
tionally corroborates their truth. " No testimony," so 
runs the assertion controverted, " reaches to the super- 
natural, it reaches only an apparently inexplicable fact; 
the inference that the extraordinary fact is due to a super- 
natural cause depends entirely on the previous belief and 
assumptions of the parties." In short, miracles are ad- 
- missible only as supplementary adjuncts of a faith already 
believed; and so well aware is Mr. Mansel of this, 



ABSOLUTE MIRACLE. 43 

that he addresses his argument in their favour exclu- 
sively to those who may be inclined to view them as an 
essential part of the " scheme of redemption," as insepar- 
able accessaries of the miraculous creed to which his 
readers are pledged and have already definitively accepted. 
Through such considerations the credit of miracles was 
undermined, and the idea of nature's uniformity, though 
by no means a generally admitted axiom, became among 
educated persons so habitual, that in ordinary cases, where 
no cherished prejudice was at stake, the suggestion of 
supernatural agency was at once attributed to ignorance 
or imposture. It was thought unnecessary to unravel 
intricacies of evidence in order to refute miraculous 
stories which, as in the instance of the lame man pointed 
out to Cardinal de Retz as having been cured by an appli- 
cation of holy oil at Saragossa, already refuted themselves, 
and, as carrying falsehood on their face, seemed rather a 
matter for derision than for argument. Slowly propa- 
gated by philosophers and deists, incredulity at last 
reached theology proper among the rationalists and 
rationalising supernaturalists, between whom there was 
little real difference, the latter only affecting a belief in 
prodigies which, though unable to drop unequivocally, 
they were ashamed unreservedly to acknowledge. One 
party rejected miracle as constituting the mere form of 
the narrative ; while the other strove to retain an infini- 
tesimal portion of it by means of subtle distinctions. 1 It 
is a curious fact, said Pomponatius, in a treatise already 
4 alluded to, that miracles cease when the religion they 
belong to is about to perish. Hence, he adds, "in fide 

1 For instance, by distinguishing, as already mentioned, the "unnatural" 
from the " supernatural," the spiritual from the physical, the subjective and 
objective, the infringed lower law from some supposed wider and higher law, 
etc., etc.— in short, insisting that the supernatural is natural after all. Dean 
Trench cites, as illustrating the nature of miracle, comets, human agency 
as seen, or supposed to be seen, by animals, the action of salt in preserving sub- 
stances from decay, and the action of the human will in "suspending" the 
law of gravitation. See Notes on Miracles, p. 16. 



44 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

r > nostra omnia frigescunt, miracula desinunt, nisi conficta et 
simulata ; nam propinquus videtur esse finis." Neverthe- 
less miracle held a certain plausibility in the general 
estimate of theologians so long as theology was main- 
tained on a theistic basis; i.e., so long as God was con- 
ceived to be an absolute will external to the world, and 
rationalism took its stand on the fundamental assumptions 
of supernaturalism. Through this anomalous state of 
things, the older rationalists had been induced to base 
their denial rather on the impossibility of recognizing 
a miracle than on the impossibility of its occurrence. 
Schleiermacher put an end to this false position of theo- 
logy by cutting off its source in the notion of God as an 
external will or ruler; and by adopting those principles of 
Spinoza which definitively terminated the fancied dominion 
of caprice, allowing divine causality to be necessary, uni- 
versal, and immanent. He expressed his readjusted creed 
in the following cumbrous and circumlocutory terms: 1 
(l Religion and science are not at variance ; since, contrary 
to commonly entertained notions on the subject, the 
religious feeling, in virtue of which we assume all things 
to be dependent on God, exactly coincides with the idea 
that these same things are conditioned and determined 
by the order of nature ; in fact, they are only different 
aspects or expressions of one thing; and consequently 
it can never be the interest of pious feeling so to under- 
stand a phenomenon that by its dependency on God its 
connection with the order of nature is suspended or super- 
seded. On the contrary, pious feeling is the more perfect 
the more it takes the whole world into account; most 
perfect, when it views all phenomena as one. Were the 
religious view of things," he adds, " at variance with the 
scientific, it would follow that the perfection of science 
/ would be the destruction of religion ; whereas the very 
- contrary is the case; the two tendencies assist and 

1 Christliche Glaube, I, 1, ss. 46 and 47, vol. i., p. 226, seq. 



ABSOLUTE MIRACLE. 45 

mutually complete each other; and it is quite a mistake 
to suppose that the unknown and uncomprehended has 
more impressiveness or better religious influence than the 
known and understood." 1 The inevitable consequence 
of these views is to reduce all miracle to the category 
of the relative, and Schleiermacher, like Spinoza, occa- 
sionally defines it as " the religious aspect of an event ;" 2 
repeating in various forms Spinoza's opinions as to the 
identity of knowledge of nature and knowledge of God; 
the incompatibility of interruptions of the one with the 
notion of the other ; the far better proof which we have 
of divine wisdom and power in the conservation of the 
order of the universe 3 than in its interruption. But 
Schleiermacher in the circumlocution office of the pulpit is 
a very different being from Spinoza the philosopher at the 
Hague. The " Christliche Glaube," the latest and ablest 
attempt to blend the incompatible elements of philosophy 
and tradition, is but ingenious prevarication, a dexterous 
display of the art of rigmarole. At first it seems as if 
the current which before set so strongly in the direction 
of rationalism had been reversed, and that regardless of 
worldly philosophy we are summoned to look exclusively 
to the consequences of sin and the redemption of the 
cross. Eventually it appears that Schleiermacher is 
more rational than rationalism itself, and that while 
ostensibly recoiling from the name of Pantheist, he is 
quietly appropriating its resources/ and setting aside 
miracles as irrelevant. But why, when so plainly inti- 
mating that miracles are no more useful to theology 
than compatible with science, does he relapse into wordy 
ambiguity, retaining in regard to a few circumstances the 

1 Comp., s. 38, p, 190. 2 Reden ueber die Religion. 

3 Comp. Christ. Glaub., I. 1, s. 47, fp. 234, with. Spinoza's "Cogitata 
Metaphysica," 2, 9, 4. — " Majus videtur esse miraculum si Deus mundum 
semper uno eodemque certo atque immutabili ordine gubernaret, quam si leges, 
quas ipse in naturS, optime et ex mera libertate sancivit, — propter stultitiam 
hominis abrogaret." 



46 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

idea of the supernatural which in others he abandons? 
Why, when dwelling on the religious significancy of the 
miracle, blink the question as to the fact, when after all 
the scriptural narrative of the fact is the only remaining 
motive for entertaining the subject at all ? A plain answer 
would be uncomplimentary to theology as well as dis- 
creditable to human nature ; and it may suffice to add that, 
setting aside certain recently manifested symptoms of 
theological desperation, exhibited in a reaction to blind 
I belief, — the tendency of the better class of modern theolo- 
gians in the wake of Schleiermacher has been to dispense 
with the miraculous as far as possible ; to disparage, with 
Kant, its evidential force and value; to give prominence 
and preference to manifestations of a specially moral and 
beneficent character; 1 and in general, to restrict miracles 
to the relativity, which, while affording a show of orthodox 
decorum, is in reality a disclaimer of them. 2 

The Scripture Principle. 

But among supernatural and also irrational beliefs there 
were some which proved much more intractable than 
others, as being either more obscure in themselves, or 
more intimately bound up with the very texture and 
safety of ordinary Protestantism. Special articles of creed 
might be modified or abandoned with comparative ease 
under cover of a vague reference to Scripture ; but Scrip- 
ture itself could never be dropped without ruin ; since, to 
ordinary minds it was the sole remaining stay of faith, 
the sole channel of legitimate communication between a 
lifeless 3 universe and God. Kejecting tradition, which in 

1 According to Augustin's dictum, — " Plus est quod vitia sanavit aniraarum 
quam quod sanavit languores corporum. 

2 Thus Tholuck defines a miracle, — "an event differing from the usual 
course of nature, as known to us, and having a religious origin and ohject." 

3 Lifeless, that is, in the philosophies of Bacon, Taurellus, Hoboes, 
Gassendi, etc. 



THE SCRIPTURE PRINCIPLE. 47 

Catholicism had supplied the deficiencies of Scripture, 
Protestantism was obliged to make the most of what 
remained, and to strain the Scripture principle to the 
utmost. Hence the theory of the absolute inspiration of y J 
the Bible, as pure, all-sufficient, and infallible ; as 
containing the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 
truth; and that not only in essentials, but in its history 
and geography, its very words and letters. For it was 
justly urged that were even a single verse ascribed to mere 
human agency, Satan would take advantage of the con- 
cession to extend the postulate to chapters and books, and 
ultimately to the whole volume. In the view of absolute 
inspiration, the questions since so elaborately canvassed as 
to style, authenticity, genuineness, etc., could not arise; 
since the writers, whether apostles and eye-witnesses or 
not, were considered as the amanuenses of the Holy Spirit, 
and it signified little who held the pen, when the true 
author, the "Auctor primarius," was God. Moreover, 
Scripture was its own infallible interpreter. It was the 
revelation of one and the same Being, who in the Old 
Testament announcing himself as God of Abraham, in the 
New as Father of Christ, fulfilled in the latter what he 
promised in the former. The hypothesis of a common 
" primary" authorship engendered the possibility of making 
all or any of the " secondary" authors the mutual ex- 
pounders of each other ; of deciphering obscurer by clearer 
notices, and thus by the so-called " analogy of faith," 
getting almost any desired meaning out of a general 
average of passages compiled from different books. 1 A 
wide field was thus opened for the arbitrary proceedings of 
the " Harmonists ; " and Osiander, splitting up the Gospels 
into fragments, re-assorted them in a fanciful continuity 

1 " We must not," says Locke, (Reasonableness, etc., p. 152,) " cull out 
here or there a period or a verse, as if they were distinct independent 
aphorisms ; we must see how the passage agrees with itself, and with other 
parts of Scripture." 



48 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

regardless of historical fitness. Arguments, internal or 
external, derived from genuineness, miracles, prophecies, 
etc., might be tolerated perhaps as collateral confirmations, 
but could not be relied on as evidence in chief; and Calvin 
warns us against building our faith on the shifting sands of 
human conclusions, like those "scoundrels" ("nebulones," 
" blaterones," " canes," etc.), who would make God's 
eternal truth dependent on human suffrages. But then 
where, after discarding both authority and argument, was 
the ultimate infallible criterium for Protestants to rely on : 
that something in the background of Scripture, which, as 
Bellarmine justly argued, was wanted to authenticate 
Scripture itself? Whence was the new faith to get that 
near and ample confidence, which, unlike the external 
assurance of the Catholic derived from precedent and 
association, should bring conviction home to the mind and 
heart of individuals? "As if," answers Calvin (Instit. I. 
7, 2), "a laboured proof were needed to enable us to dis- 
tinguish black from white, or light from darkness ; as if the 
divinity of Scripture were not as immediately self-evident 
to the soul as sweetness to the palate !'" In this claim of 
the " inner witness," the true rights of reason, conscience, 
sentiment, lay as yet dormant and undistinguished from 
the usurpations of mystical assumption. But its evidence, 
as understood at the time, was by no means allowed to be 
the mere precarious suggestion of man's reason; it was 
the "testimony of the spirit," a supplementary intemai- 
revelation from within confirming the outward or written 
one. 

Altered View of Inspiration. 

All these pretensions have been successively abandoned, 
either absolutely, or with merely nominal reservations. 
First the claim of the " inner witness," — that reduplication 
of inspiration consisting in an assumed miraculous power 
to recognise and interpret a miraculous book, — was found 



ALTERED* VIEW OF INSPIRATION. 49 

to be untenable. Carlstadt, when be went about the streets 
of Wyttenberg challenging the poorest and least educated 
to expound the Bible, — on the ground that " things hidden 
from the wise and prudent were revealed unto babes," — 
might have read the refutation of the " inner witness" in 
the blank countenances of his auditory. The Arminians 
demanded proof of its reality, — some rational assurance 
for thinking it to be something more than presumptuous 
fancy. Catholicism begged the question of its own infalli- 
bility, or appealed to Scripture in proof of its right to 
constitute and interpret Scripture ; Protestantism was 
equally illogical in quoting the book to establish the 
reliability of the feeling, and then depending on the feeling 
to establish the authority of the book. 

" The Word is thus deposed ; and in this view 
You rule the Scriptures, not the Scriptures you." 

If feeling be the ultimate criterium of faith, how, it was 
asked, are we to reply to the Quakers and the Anabaptists, 
when claiming spiritual insight on behalf of ploughmen 
and shoemakers ; and what can we say as to the conflicting 
interpretations of Protestant Confessions, by which the 
Holy Ghost is made to concede to the Lutheran what he 
denies to the Calvinist, and proving only that 

" The rule is far from plain where all dissent." 

Protestantism here refuted itself by the discrepancy of its 
inferences ; and Spinoza sarcastically remarked that those 
who claimed supernatural illumination, — as being but 
scantily furnished with natural, — appeared after all, from 
the uncertainty and wide discrepancy of their interpreta- 
tions of the same passages, to be as much in the dark as 
others. Michaelis subsequently disclaimed any conscious- 
ness of the internal movements of the Holy Spirit in his 
own case ; and Semler followed Spinoza in avowing the ex- 
perience of the moral power of Scripture to make men 
better, to be the sole real assurance of its value. 

The notion of the " inner witness " failing, the Bible was 

4 



50 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

left alone to maintain its ground as an inspired book 
against the assaults of human reason. Under this ordeal 
there was first a recurrence to the laxer notions about 
inspiration entertained by the unreformed church, and 
shared with Erasmus by Luther ; then the accuracy, 
purity, and sufficiency of the Bible revelation were im- 
peached and defended on rational grounds; until, after 
many qualifications and concessions, it began to be seen 
that the thing itself, as usually understood, is an impossi- 

i bility; and that no revelation is really admissible save that 
of nature, history, and the human soul. How are we to 
tell that a writing is inspired ? To trust its own assertion in 
the matter (for example, the " Traaa ypacjyr) OeovrvevaTos " 
in 2 Tim. iii. 16), were to assume the point at issue, and 

, indeed a great deal more ; nor can its miraculous recitals 
settle the previous question as to its veracity ; but we may 
at least expect that an inspired writing shall contain no 
obvious inaccuracies, improprieties, or self-contradictions. 
The discovery of these would of course undermine its credit. 
Those faults of expression which, under a laxer theory of 
inspiration had been acknowledged, but excused and even 
paraded by the Fathers, as exhibiting the same contrast of 
external lowliness with internal excellence and dignity as 
was shown in the person of Christ, necessarily imperilled 
— the theory of verbal inspiration ; and the danger was much 
increased by the awkward discovery that the Masoretic 
punctuation of the Old Testament, amounting, in fact, to a 
new conjectural rendering of the original, was of compara- 
tively recent date, so that in modern versions, as in the 

j Vulgate, it appeared that we have only translations of a 
translation. Still more difficulty arose from the considera- 
tion that although the sacred text might have been cor- 
rectly given to the first writers, it might not have been 
faithfully transmitted ; the invaluable autographs had 
perished; the Fathers, who had so great an interest in 
their preservation, do not even mention them; and the 



ALTERED VIEW OF INSPIRATION. 51 

apprehension of an admixture of human fallibility and 
error turned out to be but too well founded when the 
critical labours of Richard Simon, Mill, Wettstein, and 
Bengel brought to light varying readings by thousands, 
obliging reason to lend a helping hand to correct the 
mistakes of its supposed infallible guide. Then it was 
found that not only are there differences of style and 
language in the Bible, but wide variations as to fact 
and doctrine; that Samuel and Kings are at issue with 
Chronicles, Matthew with John, Paul with James ; that 
the New Testament contradicts the Old in important 
particulars ; that the language of the latter is often mis- 
construed and mis-quoted in the former ; and that even the 
same books, as Genesis, Samuel, etc., contain conflicting 
statements. The forced attempts of the so-called "Har- 
monists" to obviate these difficulties, only made their 
reality more conspicuous ; and Spinoza remarked that 
commentators undertaking to reconcile irreconcileable con- 
tradictions, not only lost their time and labour, but exposed 
the sacred writers to contempt by making them seem 
either ignorant of their own meaning, or unable to express 
it. A source of still more serious objection to the Bible, — 
indeed the very same which had already rent the church, 
— appeared in the deliberate alienation of the moral con- 
science. It may astonish those who would even now make 
the Bible the "basis of moral education," to learn that 
from the earliest Christian times many parts of it were 
challenged as decidedly immoral. Still more shocking 
than the humanising representations of God in the Old 
Testament seemed the violations of charity and decency 
either passing uncensured or expressly sanctioned in it; 
such as the spoiling of the Egyptians, the extermination 
of the Canaanites, 1 the stories of Lot, Jacob, Eebekah, 

1 It is sad to reflect to what depths the human mind may descend if super- 
stitious reverence he once allowed the supremacy over reason and conscience. 
When we are told that the late Dr. Arnold vindicated God's command to 
Ahraham to sacrifice his son, and to the Jews to exterminate the Canaanites, 



x 



52 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

Judah, Jael, etc., — stories which nothing could entirely 
excuse in a book especially destined for moral edification ; 
so that while some, reading the accounts literally, 1 dis- 
carded the books containing* them, or ascribed the Old 
Testament, either wholly 2 or in part, 3 to the suggestions of 
an evil or inferior principle, others were obliged to evade the 
literal sense by allegorical interpretation. The free spirit 
of the early reformation, the excessive religious inde- 
pendence of Luther and Zwingli, enabled them to go 
the length of treating even the Scriptures with com- 
parative impartiality, and admitting that, according to 
apostolic dicta, 4 with its silver and gold there was a con- 
siderable mixture of hay and stubble. And when ordinary 
Protestantism sank into Bibliolatry, rationalists began 
to pry still more closely into the blemishes of the idol ; to 
detect the clay concealed under the brass ; to expose its 
sanctions of pilfering and lying, polygamy and slavery, 
cruelty and intolerance ; nor could they admit the weak 
excuses offered for such scandals on the score of the 
writers' candour, the utility of warning example, the 
neutralisation of objectionable passages by others, etc., 
etc. Even those upholding the general excellence of 
Scripture were obliged to admit that it was not of equal 
excellence throughout, and that with many momentous 
intimations it contains others whose use is not obvious, 
and many, such as that about David's Cherethites and 
Pelethites, or Paul's coat left at Troas, having no utility 
at all. Tindal, in his " Christianity old as the Creation," 
remarked on the Bible obscurities and shortcomings, its 
silence on the very matters for which a revelation is most 

by " explaining the principles on "which these commands were given as part of 
God's religious education of the human race," we cannot be surprised at the 
moral aberrations of the many pious men who read these accounts in "reve- 
rential silence," as well as other men equally pious who have imitated the 
example so unfortunately placed before them. See Arnold's Life and Corres- 
pondence, vol i, p. 179. 

1 The school of Antioch. 2 Marcion. 3 The Clementine Homilies. 
4 1 Cor. ill. 12. 



ALTERED VIEW OF INSPIRATION. 53 

needed, its paradoxical maxims calculated in the absence 
of explanation to lead to endless absurdity, such as 
imitating the lilies, taking no thought for the morrow, 
offering the cheek to the smiter, giving the cloak to the 
robber of the coat, or that other precept which Origen, 
generally so fond of figurative explanation, chose to 
understand literally. And who, he added, can construe 
the Bible with certainty who is unacquainted with the 
original languages ? All men cannot be critics and 
linguists ; and yet without a knowledge of Greek and 
Hebrew we must either spell out the conditions of salva- 
tion by precarious guesswork, or depend, like Catholics, 
on a priest, or else blindly follow opinion, which makes a 
man a heathen in Japan, or a Mahommedan in Turkey ! 
In short, the pretensions of purity and sufficiency had 
to be given up ; Scripture is both redundant and deficient ; 
it contains much that is false, and omits much that is true. 
Hence a variety of attempts to abridge the claim of 
inspiration, to limit it as to quantity and quality. The 
impulse to write, the words, the order, the matter, and 
the pure essence or " word," were carefully distinguished ; 
verbal inspiration was abandoned ; the " suggestio rerum " 
was confined to prophecy, or lowered, as by Clericus and 
the Arminians, to a certain amount of original illumina- 
tion or general superintendence, until at last the area of 
divine agency was infinitesimally reduced, its operation 
being attenuated to the sense in which everything good 
must be admitted to proceed from God. Foremost in 
openly contradicting inspiration in the ordinary sense was 
Spinoza. His free and comprehensive view enabled him, as 
above stated, to anticipate theoretically the refutation of 
miracle which the progress of physical science was working 
out experimentally and practically. And this refutation 
was fatal, not only to the supernatural accounts contained 
in Scripture, but also to its supernatural origin. Inspira- 
tion was a mere figurative term or Oriental exaggeration ; 



54 



GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 



and Spinoza endeavoured to shew that while no pretension 
of this sort is made in the apostolic writings, everything 
seeming unusual or supernatural in the prophets must 
be ascribed to imaginative language or to hallucinations 
of excited fancy. Luke, St. Paul, etc., confessedly wrote 
not in the capacity of prophets, bat as teachers ; and in 
regard to prophecy, Spinoza remarked that since his 
countrymen habitually referred impressive and uncom- 
prehended effects directly to the First Cause, we are justified 
in translating their ideas as well as their words, and treat- 
ing their assumed supernatural intimations as natural. In 
this he only anticipated the views which a century later 
were destined to become general, when theology began to 
yield to the arguments of rationalism, and the convictions 
of the few descended, like the upper currents of the air, to 
the level of ordinary minds. The first and most obvious 
resource of scepticism under the pressure of speculative 
difficulty, is to seek refuge in the practical, — in common 
sense and common conscience; such had been the policy 
of the philologists of the Revival, as later of the Socinians 
and Deists; from this rallying point successive inroads 
were made on the Divinity of Scripture, and the same 
internal assurance which enabled the confessionalist of the 
old school to recognise revelation, or the Deist to dispense 
with it, emboldened the rationalistic theologian to reduce it 
to a minimum. The aim of Deists was to eliminate what 
they termed the moral essence of Scripture, the really 
Divine Word of natural religion, and to cast aside the 
remainder as superfluity or imposture. " Scripture," said 
Spinoza, "is truly termed 'Word of God' only as 
teaching God's universal law, — love to Him and to our 
neighbour. This true original religion has been engraved 
in the heart of man by God himself; and hence Moses 
(Deut. xxx. 6, 14) and Jeremiah (xxxi. 33) predict the ar- 
rival of a time when the written law would be superseded. 
So that if it be objected that to disparage Scripture is to 



THE EVIDENCES. 55 

disparage the Word of God, I, on the contrary, have 
to complain that in assigning inordinate sanctity to 
Scripture, men are instituting an empty idolatry of forms 
and images, of ink and paper." But in this view Scripture 
in its actual form ceased to be the all-sufficient rule, and 
became itself amenable to the awards and measurements of 
the human mind. It was no longer identical with revela- 
tion; still, by the theologians, it was upheld as " containing" 
revelation; to ascertain and extricate the latter it had to 
undergo a process of weeding and pruning, in the course 
of which the "pure word" was recognised either by its 
inherent moral power to edify as Semler said, or, according 
to the pious Bengel, was traced as a delicate aroma of 
godliness amid the mazes of contradictory readings and 
manuscripts by religious instinct. In the course of this 
process more and more was thrown into the category 
of the superfluous ; until in course of time Semler 
proclaimed the inferences of Spinoza from the professor's 
chair at Halle, and it was at last admitted that Scripture 
contains nothing whatever of importance which reason 
might not have attained independently. 

The Evidences. 

But before these inferences were generally received, 
there was an intermediate state of opinion, a temporary 
suspension of the crisis which must here be adverted to. 
When the idea of the absolute internal evidence of in- 
spiration, or the so-called " inner witness," was given 
up, and the Bible reduced more or less to the level of 
a human production, two parties appeared on the field 
virtually left open to enquiry, the argumentative par- 
tizan, or writer of " evidences," and the historical critic. 
The former class, i.e., the theologians inheriting from the 
Socinians and Locke the postulate of "rational religion," 
tried to make reason do the work which faith seemed dis- 



56 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

inclined or unable any longer to perform ; they undertook 
to base the " fides divina" on the " fides humana;" to give 
an adventitious right of settlement to what seemed to have 
no intrinsic rights or natural home in the country of the 
soul ; to furnish proof of the reliability of Scripture 
considered as the human testimony of competent eye- 
witnesses, who were both able and willing to speak truth. 
Hence the elaborate arguments as to genuineness and 
authenticity collected by Lardner and others an answer 
to the Deists a'n proof of the general divinity of Scripture. 
For if, it was said, what apostles and evangelists report 
of Christ be true, namely, that he wrought miracles and 
even rose from the dead, he must have been divinely com- 
missioned ; the facts being true, Christianity must be true ; 
and thus, having humbled religion before the bar of 
reason, we indirectly get it back again in the form of 
an inference or syllogism. But there were many fallacies 
and false assumptions in the premises. What would now 
be thought of Warburton's monstrous begging of the ques- 
tion in the Divine Legation ? Who is thoroughly satisfied 
by the " tu quoque " argument of Butler's Analogy ; or 
by his defence of Scripture immoralities and murders on 
the ground that He who gave life was able to revoke it, 
and that a few detached commands to do immoral things 
have no immoral tendency, as constituting no immoral 
habit? Who does not see the fallacy of pretending that 
no greater demand is made on faith by the Incarnation, the 
Atonement, and the Trinity, — than by those constantly re- 
curring cases in which we fearlessly act in implicit reliance 
on nature's order? The reference to miracle as evidence 
becomes a snare instead of a support, compelling the 
bewildered advocate to beg the credentials of the miracle 
out of the general antecedent credibility of the system or 
doctrine it was cited to support. Miracles, instead of 
affording satisfactory proof of anything, are now usually 
found in the dock instead of the witness-box of the court of 



THE EVIDENCES. 57 

criticism ; and it is pertinently asked why, except among 
the mountains of Grenoble or the revivalists of Belfast, 
are there no well accredited modern miracles? since 
Scripture stands opposed to the notion of their having abso- 
lutely ceased; 1 and it is impossible to assert in the face 
of the multiplying assaults of modern scepticism that 
they are less necessary now than they were eighteen 
centuries ago. The usual staple of what is called 
Scripture " evidence" consists in registering every de- 
tached fragment of ostensible testimony, however in itself 
weak and unreliable, and carefully omitting the test of 
cross-examination. The Jews believed the Old Testa- 
ment to be genuine ; Christ and the Apostles accepted it ; 
the inference is therefore unquestionable ; authorship is 
to be legitimately inferred from the names given on 
the title-page, and " there is no more reason to doubt that 
the Gospels were written by those whose names they bear, 
than that Livy or Tacitus wrote the books ascribed to 
them ; " • ' that these writings have come down to us in the 
state in which they were originally written there is every 
reason to believe," etc., etc. 2 But the advocate omits to 
state that a prior question might fairly be raised as to 
the competency of his Jewish witnesses ; that these 
witnesses entertained other beliefs of a very monstrous 
and irrational kind; that "Peter" and "Jude" supply 
apostolic attestations of the book of Enoch and the u As- 
censio Mosis" as genuine Scripture; that the Evangelists 
cite the Old Testament arbitrarily and incorrectly; that 
the Fathers relied on to prove the genuineness of the 
New rejected several parts of it, admitting writings not 
now received as canonical, and were swayed either by 
fanciful reasons in their choice, or by no reason at all 
save arbitrary usage and custom. But not to dwell 

1 See Mark xvi. 17 ; John xiv. 12. 

2 See Porteus' Evidences, p. 36, etc. 



58 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

longer on these pretended evidences, 1 which being ex-parte y 
unverified, and otherwise inconclusive, were continually 
more and more clearly seen to be useless for the proposed 
object, it eventually appeared that the whole proceeding 
was a mistake ; that the common assumption of Apolo- 
gists and Deists as to " rational " or argumentative 
religion was fallacious ; and that, after all, in making 
faith the first and paramount requirement, the original 
instincts of Christianity had been perfectly right. The 
competence and also the integrity of the attesting witnesses 
had already been impugned ; it now turned out that their 
evidence was not only inadequate but irrelevant. One of 
the earliest advocates of evidential belief had admitted its 
basis to be unsound ; and Episcopius 2 declared from the 
first that historical faith could never reach more than 
probability. The merely external status assigned by 
Socinianism to revelation was only the prelude to a re- 
nunciation of it. And when inspiration was reduced from 
its first lofty pretensions to a vague moral essence or 

1 The writers of "Evidences*" expatiate on "the pure light of the gospel," 
"the heauty of the Christian scheme," "this beneficent code of religion," etc., 
etc., but rarely, if ever, condescend to define clearly and exactly the thing so 
recommended. Is it for instance to be considered, as the late Archbishop of 
Canterbury says (Evidences, pp. 59, 74), an original and entirely new thing, or, 
as the Archbishop of Dublin has it (Evidences, p. 61), a continuation and 
fulfilment of the old ? Dr. Sumner treats the Atonement as characteristically 
and exclusively Christian ; and he adduces the novelty and peculiarity of this 
doctrine as a main proof of the supernatural origin of the religion. " There 
was nothing," he says, "in the preceding expectations of Jews or heathens 
tending to make the doctrine of atonement credible ; it was in open contradic- 
tion to the opinions and belief of all who heard it" (Evidences, pp. 59, 66). 
Omitting for the present any consideration of the accuracy of this statement, 
be it observed that Dr. Whately elicits the same proof of supernatural origin 
from the contrary assumption, or from the assumed fact of the absence of 
sacrifices in Christianity in contrast with universal cotemporary practice 
(Evidences, p. 64). Surely when Canterbury's Archbishop, in quoting Volney 
and Tom Paine as the "most rational" authors known to him on the free- 
thinking side, dismisses them with a contemptuous — " such is infidelity," the 
commiseration may with at least equal cause be reiterated on the freethinking 
side with the exclamation — "such are self-contradictions of official orthodoxy." 

2 "Impossibile est id quod dictum, factum, scriptumve ab aliquo est, 
postquam auctor in vivis esse desiit, ita probare ab eo scriptum, dictum> 
factumve esse, ut cavilli aut tergiversationis locus nullus reliquus maneat." 



THE EVIDENCES. 59 

tendency to edify, of which reason and conscience were 
the judges, it became useless to adduce arguments in proof 
of that which, if susceptible of proof, was already self- 
proved; — supremacy reverted to the " inner witness" which 
had so long been held in abeyance by the outward letter ; 
the doctrine had once more to sustain the miracle, instead 
of being supported by it ; and thus rational or argumen- 
tative supernaturalism gave place either to rationalism, or 
to what in the technical theological phraseology of Ger- 
many was termed " supernatural rationalism," — i.e., the 
theory reducing revelation to a mere anticipation of the 
results of reason, the means of an easier or earlier attain- 
ment of what might have been acquired without it. Ar- 
gumentative theology was an ingenious way of making 
reason refute itself; it meant the art of being logically 
absurd, the discovery of rational grounds for believing 
irrational things. It rested on the assumption of the com- 
petency of reason to determine the criteria of revelation, 
but not to sit in judgment on its contents; whereas the 
contents were in reality the best, perhaps the only avail- 
able criteria for estimating the matter at all. Authority 
thus reverting to internal evidence, it only remained to 
be seen what shape the internal arbiter would take; 
whether it would appear as reason and conscience, or as 
fanatical caprice ; as indolent conventionalism, or as 
sceptical denial. The Quakers had long before seen 
that a book confessedly derived from internal revelation 
could not claim primary authority ; Spinoza was led to a 
diffierent form of the same inference from the same dis- 
covery ; Jacobi plunged recklessly into feeling in order 
to escape the God of reason and Spinoza; Hume ac- 
quiesced in the sceptical inference, referring even the 
foundations of religion to custom and belief; theologians 
availed themselves of the threatening crisis in order to 
insist the more vehemently on " fides implicita" of 
churches ; and Kant reared a new system of rational 



60 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

belief out of the midst of Hume's scepticism. In short, 
there was a general breaking up and readjustment ; a 
recurrence of the same general phenomena which hap- 
pened at the close of the scholastic period, when the 
unskilfully united elements cf reason and religion fell 
asunder, and the dissociated ingredients appeared in 
their separate forms of mysticism and conventionalism, 
scepticism and philosophy. — The immediate reaction of 
religious feeling against the scholasticism of logical 
" evidence " was forcibly expressed by the younger 
Dodwell in England and by Lessing in Germany. 
Dodwell argued 1 that histories and syllogisms could never 
establish a faith of sufficient energy to overrule life and 
conduct, to console us in life and death, and to supply 
such an assurance of truth as to leave behind no mis- 
givings as to possible mistake. The first step of philo- 
sophy, he said, was to cast aside our prejudices and pre- 
conceptions ; whereas our holy religion bids us cherish 
and abide by them : to sit down to examine our religion is 
already to surrender it; and the principle of postponing 
belief until reason is satisfied would justify a whole life 
of sceptical suspense. "True religion," says Lessing, 
" consists not in historical facts or written documents, but 
in eternal spiritual truths. The latter cannot be estab- 
lished by contingent historical facts ; a miracle, even if 
unsusceptible of disproof, cannot compel me to believe 
what is in itself irrational. Historical facts are confessedly 
incapable of demonstration; and if so, nothing can be 
demonstrated by their means. Prophecies visibly fulfilled, 
miracles visibly performed, have a very different force 
from such as are only historically related. Nor is religion 
more dependent on books than on events. Religion is 
older than the Bible; the Bible is founded on religion, 
not religion on it ; nor is Christianity based upon the New 
Testament ; it existed before any part of the New Testa- 

1 In his " Christianity not founded on Argument." 



THE READJUSTMENT OF BELIEF. 61 

ment was written ; apostles and evangelists did not make 
it true, but taught it because it was true ; there was an 
interval of time before any of them wrote, and a still 
longer ere the canon was formed. And if religion existed 
before and independently of the Bible, it may well survive 
its destruction. Luther emancipated us from tradition; 
but our escape from the still more intolerable burthen of 
the letter is still to come. When, Luther, thou great 
but ill appreciated name, will anyone give us a Christianity 
such as thou wouldst now teach, such as Christ himself 
would now sanction ! " 

The Readjustment of Belief. 

The collapse of conventional dogmatism is the signal 
and opportunity for a revival of natural religion. When 
the coarse and inert philosophy of the many comes, a3 it 
inevitably must, to lose its credit and vitality, philan- 
thropists will always strive to anticipate the demoralising 
effects of its final overthrow by providing an adequate 
substitute. Such a substitute, to those who are not too 
exacting or morbidly fastidious, is always at hand, and 
becomes more and more obvious through the operation of 
the same causes through which conventional fictions are 
discredited. Even amidst the imposing ceremonial of his 
temple the Jew felt that its dimensions were too narrow 
for the religion of the universe, — that the heavens alone 
adequately declare God's glory. 1 At the decline of Pagan- 
ism, when the Roman Augurs could scarcely maintain 
becoming seriousness, a member of the Augural college 
ventured to exhibit the simple belief of natural religion 
in advantageous contrast with the symbols of superstition. 
In the face of the growing externalism of the Christian 
Church, Clement of Alexandria and afterwards Augustin 

1 Psalm xix., 1 Kings viii. 27, and the 8th, 29th, 65th, 104th, and several 
other Psalms. 



62 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

appealed to the living witness of the "book of nature," 
and Origen spoke of the religious significancy of creation 
as giving a foretaste of heavenly raptures. Many have 
been the efforts since made on the part of philosophy to 
enlarge its boundaries by responding to the religious aspi- 
rations left unsatisfied by theology. When the elements 
of scholasticism fell asunder, and the sceptical dogmatism 
of the nominalistic churchman confronted either the 
equally sceptical superficiality of common sense, or the 
dizzy sublimities of mysticism, Mcolaus Cusanus and 
the Florentine Academy tried to restore the connection of 
religion with rational philosophy, and Kaymond de Se- 
bonde went so far as to assign to the " book of creatures " 
or of nature a priority over that of revelation. " The 
second book," he says in his preface, "was given only 
because men were unable to read the first, that " older 
scripture wrote by God's own hand," which stands aloof and 
inaccessible to human corruptions and mistakes, whereas 
the other is exposed to endless mutilations and false inter- 
pretations of every sort." The early German poets and 
preachers led back the bewildered conscience from church 
morality to true morality; and it is remarkable that the 
.chief writers on ethics in later times were naturalists or 
free-thinkers. Bacon gave up the name of religion to 
conventionalism, but reserved its essence for the pursuit 
of science ; although the latter, confined for the time to 
utilitarian aims, was unconscious of the full import of its 
mission. 1 But this was asserted by Spinoza : and Lord 
Herbert of Cherbury still more unequivocally reunited 
religion to philosophy, disclaiming at the same time its 
superstitious counterfeits. The moral sense, hesitatingly 
asserted by Charron and the Socinians, became in Spinoza 
supreme, virtually ending the long nominalistic severance, 
and assigning a subordinate position to traditional books 
and dogmas. " Can anything be more monstrous," he 

1 See Appendix C. 



THE READJUSTMENT OF BELIEF. 63 

exclaimed, " than to submit the divine light of reason, 
heaven's best and noblest gift, to the dead letter of a book, 
exposed during so many ages to all the hazards of malice, 
mutilation, and neglect ; to think it no wrong to disparage 
the divinely imparted faculties of the soul, while deeming 
it profanation to doubt the judgment and fidelity of those 
through whose hands the Bible has been transmitted ? " 
Spinoza taught the soul the lesson of religious resignation 
to the Absolute and Infinite, leaving nominal religion as a 
practical discipline to train common minds in the plain 
maxims of justice and charity. His system was called 
a system of ethics because, though founded on a specula- 
tive view of nature, its purpose was ethical, having duty 
and freedom for its objects. In one sense, however, it was 
immoral, because prostrating the energies of the soul 
before a cold and sterile synthesis of the All considered as 
a mere mechanism of causation, it failed in the essential 
element of moral vitality, and was more fit for oriental 
ascetics than to become the creed of modern Europe. 
Leibnitz based upon his Monadology, or theory of a con- 
tinuously ascending scale of being, a system of " natural 
theology " of a more active kind, which may be described 
as " moral naturalism," and as standing midway between 
Spinoza's abstract naturalism and the pure moralism of 
Kant. It was natural, because founded on a general view 
of nature ; moral, as uniting the contemplation of final 
causes, which had been rejected by Spinoza and by Hobbes, 
to that.of efficient or mechanical ones. The faculty of per- 
ception, said Leibnitz, 1 which consciously or unconsciously 
inheres in all being, is ever accompanied by appetition ; 
all beings strive towards the supreme Being or God ; 
in man alone instinctive desire rises into consciousness, 
and consciousness is further susceptible of being raised 
from obscure perceptions of elementary faith into clearer 

1 Pursuing here the train of thought already suggested by Cusanus and 
Bruno. 



64 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

ideas of philosophy. The allegiance of the will in 
this course of aspiration constitutes morality, which, in 
fact is only an inferior phase in an identical process, — 
morality contemplating limited perfection, religion abso- 
lute or divine. Leibnitz regarded individual permanency 
or immortality not as an exceptional privilege in man, but 
as the necessary attribute of all substance, and extending 
in a certain sense 1 to all being. In Leibnitz the mind 
may be said to have made a momentary pause, similar to 
that which occurred at the revival of learning, for the 
purpose of gathering up the best philosophic thoughts 
of former ages ; 2 and it was under his influence that the 
notion of human progress, which ever since the com- 
mencement of modern philosophy had been growing into 
prominence, became definitively installed among the ideas 
of religion. The idea was not unknown to the medieval 
schools of Aquinas and St. Victor; but the ladder of 
ascent through nature to God rested, with them, on 
treacherous foundations, and its fall interrupted for ages 
the continuity of faith and science, leaving heaven and 
earth without any apparent link of intelligible connection. 
The idea of progress and perfectibility, formally announced 
by Bacon, Pascal, and Descartes, is justly associated with 
the advance of physical science, as owing to that advance 
its actual establishment as a maxim, and the most incon- 
testible proofs of its reality. Yet it existed much earlier 
as an instinct of our moral being, and obtained currency 
as a faith long before it became a philosophical conviction. 
The age of iron was never consciously felt except in con- 
nection with an anticipated golden one, and the deeply 
deplored "fall" was only the first mental symptom of the 
effort to rise. It was only by a perversion of the notion 
of religion, either by superstition, or by the spirit of 

1 Calling it " indefectibility " in inferior animals ; " immortality " in man. 

2 Hence Kuno Fischer gives to the reform initiated by Leibnitz the general 
name of " Rehabilitation." " Fr, Baco von Verulam," p. 372. 



THE READJUSTMENT OF BELIEF. 65 

conventional insincerity, that this most essential idea 
became estranged from its theory and its history. " In 
religion" says Macaulay, 1 " we trace no constant progress ; 
ecclesiastical history is a mere movement to and fro. In 
things concerniDg this life and this world, men constantly 
become better and wiser ; but of the dealings of God with 
man no more has been revealed to the nineteenth century 
than to the first ; to London than to the wildest parish in 
the Hebrides." The fallacy lies in low conventional ideas 
of religion, naturally contemplated by the politician as 
part of a political establishment, 2 and as standing entirely 
aloof from the progressive tendencies of science in conse- 
quence of the nominalistic severance which Bacon found 
it expedient to connive at, but which can no longer be 
considered as admissible. In early times philosophy 
merges in religious stagnation; at a later day religion 
is regenerated as philosophy. Leibnitz, in all things a 
man of peace and compromise, tried to save traditional 
faith by once more lending it a semblance of philosophic 
colouring and support. Kant treated the subject with less 
ceremony, and brought back religion very nearly to the 
point where Spinoza left it. He overthrew the so-called 
" rational theology" of Cartesianism and of Wolf, and 
effectually distinguished the essence of religion from the 
husk of positive forms. Kant's system was conditioned 
by Hume's scepticism. For he shewed that, admitting 
causation to be mere belief, the belief is an essential part 
of the laws and constitution of the human mind ; and 

1 Review of Ranke's History of the Popes. 

2 The same stigma which Macaulay affixes to " religion," — meaning by the 
term mere conventional religion,— is attached by Positivists to "■ metaphysics ;" 
the inference being reached by mistaking the temper in which alone such 
subjects should be approached, and by dissevering them from the progressive 
march of subsidiary knowledge with which they are properly connected. It 
is idle to talk about the unprogressive nature of a religion tied to a certain 
creed, and imposed as a necessity by the nurse, by the government, and by 
tyrannical opinion ; it is equally so to disparage metaphysics on account of the 
too confident tone of a Spinoza or a Hegel. "Why make either metaphysics or 
religion responsible for our erroneous modes of treating them ? 






66 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

that, although we can know and assert nothing beyond 
the limits of consciousness and experience, still within 
those limits there are certain reliable axioms or guiding 
ideas of reason (" Vernunft-ideen"), — namely, God, free- 
dom, and immortality, — which, acting as negative only 
in matters of speculation, become creative and imperative 
on the moral side, the sufficient sources of morality and 
religion. And indeed the whole tendency of modern 
thought in its controversy with dogmatism had been to 
substitute internal for external criteria, and in particular 
to assign substantive religious dignity to ethics, of which 
sentiment and conscience form so large a part. Practical 
morality was the vantage-ground through which, from 
John of Salisbury and the Nominalists, down to Mon- 
taigne and Charron, the Socinians and Deists, men had 
either evaded or contended against bewilderments of 
speculation, until from a mere form of scepticism or art 
of happiness it rose to the dignity of a faith, and after 
being distorted by ecclesiastics, and degraded by Hobbes, 
reasserted in Shaftesbury and Kant its claim as absolute 
internal director of the individual soul ; representing duty 
as the form or feeling in which the law of perfect reason 
is most clearly and impressively made obvious to imperfect 
beings. 

Disciplined and emancipated 1 in the school of Kant, 

1 Yet the subjective philosophy has itself been made the plea for leading 
back the mind to renewed slavery. Idealism resumed dogmatical airs in 
Hegel, and there was already in Kant's "subjective apriority" a latent ten- 
dency to become so. Theology too, ever vacillating and ambiguous, exhibited 
the same reactionary tendencies in Schleiermacher as philosophy in Hegel. 
Schleiermacher shot arrows of free subjectivity from behind a stalking-horse 
of adoptive folly. His individual consciousness dealt unsparing blows to 
received dogma ; but again humbled itself, under the name of " Christian 
consciousness," before an external formula thought to be sup ernatur ally 
originated and communicated ; so that his followers easily reverted to various 
forms of more or less abject confessionalism. Again, we have been told that 
by the conditions of subjective philosophy the ultimate reality is a subject of 
"knowledge ;" that " definite objects and infinite space are apprehended with 
equal certitude and clearness ;" and that since philosophy propounds the ideas 
of "Infinite" and " Absolute " as a thesis inevitably engendered by necessities 
of faculty, faculty may be allowed to go on with the task of filling up the 



THE READJUSTMENT OF BELIEF. 67 

restored to its right of " searching all things," but at the 
same time sobered by a more exact consciousness of its 
limits, the religious mind reverted in a juster spirit to the 
problem of the universe, — the Infinite and Absolute of 
Spinoza, — a gulf deeper than human plummet can ever 
sound ; at whose brink silence is the most becoming 
wisdom, our only knowledge being the fact and fashion 
of our ignorance : x 

Ueber diesen grauenvollen Schlund 
Tragt kein Nachen, keiner Briicke Bogen, 
Und kein Anker findet grand. 

But the contemplation of the infinitely great is painfully 
interrupted by the infinitely small remonstrances of nomi- 
nalistic theologians, the warning entreaty of Huet, Ventura, 
and Mansel. They cry, " Behold the self-proclaimed im- 
potence of philosophy, the hideous abyss of pantheism, 
the vacuity of despair ! Philosophy itself proclaims its 
dependency on faith ; why not meekly acquiesce in the ; 
i fides implicita' of the engrafted word, — the ready made 
rest provided for the soul by the Church or by the Bible 1 " 
In every act of mental regeneration there is doubtless a 
momentary struggle, a sense of diffidence and despondency, 
which gives opportunity to the reactionist, and may cause 
intellectual suicide in the very crisis of intellectual re- 
generation. But how ask us to continue to perform un- 
meaning homage before a shrine deserted by its Deity; 
and why need we be scared by an alternative contemplated 
with no discomposure by Origen and Dionysius, Erigena 
and Eccart; which had no terrors for the author of the 
treatise on " learned ignorance " or for Malebranche, and 
which (already implied in the terms Infinite, Omnipresent, 

vacant outline out of its own resources, whether logical, sentimental, or 
imaginative, thus reinfusing personality into the impersonal, and facilitating 
by easy gradations the relapse to theological ideas ! But those who have 
escaped from traditional theology will scarcely be again ensnared by such 
entanglements. 

1 " Qui scitur melius nesciendo "•— " Cujus nulla scientia est nisi scire quo- 
modo eum nesciat." — Augustin. 



68 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

etc.) is freely expressed by the Bible itself in regard to 
Him who is " above all and through all and in all." 1 The 
dignity of the world's Author rises with the dignity of the 
work ; the latter cannot appear so excellent as a mechanical 
product, however skilfully constructed, as when the Artist 
himself lives and moves unceasingly within it as the 
visible expression of immanent perfection. The question 
so long debated between Theist and Pantheist, tran- 
scending as it assuredly does the competency of reason, 
must be admitted to be of less moment in its speculative 
than in its moral bearings. Judged by this test it is diffi- 
cult to see the superiority of Theism. The worship of a 
personal being is almost inevitably connected with an 
arbitrary theory of duty, and with more or less of immoral 
egoism. A morality standing apart from the essential 
nature of Deity becomes preceptual, external, and pre- 
carious ; the general religious relation too is apt to de- 
generate into one of mercenary covenant, a childish inter- 
change of compliments or services. Hence the aberrations 
of many are impure superstition ; the substitution of ritual- 
ism for morality ; the perpetration of intrinsically unholy 
acts in the name of religion "for God's glory;" and on 
the other hand the imaginary revels of Odin, the fishy 
futurity of the Greenlander, the sensualism which in- 
fatuated the Jew, the houris of the Arab. Wishes and 
consolations, varying as they do with differences of climate 
and culture, can afford no adequate test of the real value 
of a faith. Plato ridicules the self-contradictory heaven of 
the eudsemonist, stimulating magnanimity by fear, and 
temperance by licentiousness. Yet something of this kind 
is the constant requirement of theism. It may advance 
from notions of worldly prosperity to ideal joys ; it may 
refine the tangible materialistic liberality conferring wealth 
and increase, into largesses of gratuitous forgiveness and su- 

1 Ephes. iv. 6, and i. 23 ; Acts xvii. 28; 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17.-" The Biblical 
doctrine of the Divine Immanence," says Olshausen, Commentar, vol. i., 
p. 253, 3rd Ed. 



THE READJUSTMENT OF BELIEF. D^ 

pervenient grace ; still its object is help and reward ; an un- 
earned irregular self-appropriation of the general by discon- 
tented individuals ; — "lo, we have left all and followed thee; 
what shall we have then ? " Theism asks for one who can ^ 
listen, sympathise, requite ; a being accessible and yield- 
ing, who bends the cold rigidities of the law to suit special 
whim ; who responds to calculations of self-interest, and, as 
Locke phrases it, " makes virtue the most enriching pur- 
chase and the best bargain;" 1 one who feels as we feel, 
judges as we judge, reflects our own greed or intolerance, 
and indemnifies the mercenary devotion leading men to 
sacrifice the comfort and reputation of others as well as 
their own time, money, or children to his honour. And 
this is made evident by the fact that the rationalistic 
God standing outside the world which he once made and 
then left to run down like clockwork, is quite as repulsive 
to theistic instincts as the God of Pantheism. Theism did 
not discard the Jewish God to put up with an abstraction ; 
the vacant unoccupied Being standing aloof and useless, 
who suggested to the mind of Lessing the idea of eternal 1 
monotony and intolerable ennui. Theism wants a pure 
but still a pliable being ; it is still the same feeling which 
has ever created a God after man's image, and which for \\ 
C ages displaced the Almighty Father from Christian sym- 
7 bolism in order to give more room for the nearer per- 
sonality of the Son. It admits no thorough purification. 
You may divest it of its coarser outlines ; strip off unbe- 
coming attributes; but in this you only get nearer to a 
metaphysical abstraction destitute of the very qualities 
which the Theist wants; 2 the taint reaches to the core, 
, and you find that you escape from anthropomorphism only 
ho plunge into nonentity. Or even supposing that, some- 

1 " Reasonableness of Christianity" — Locke's "Works, vol. vii. p. 150. 

2 On this ground the Prometheus of Goethe disclaims the God of rationalism ; 

Ich dich ehren ? Wofiir ? 

Hast du die Schmerzen gelindert 

Je des Beladenen, etc. 



70 



GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 



what short of a mere abstraction, you do succeed in main- 
taining a tolerably decent limit of spiritual notions and 
moral requisitions ; still you have no advantage over 
Pantheism, which responds to every want that is really 
moral, and displaces a far-off Providence only to bring it 
^ more intelligibly near, and to re-establish it in another 
form. In short, it is useless renouncing theistic idolatry 
by halves ; the purifying process carries us involuntarily 
onwards to the idea of pantheistic immanency, which pro- 
perly considered effaces unworthy notions at their root, 
and irrevocably places the reward of virtue in itself. 1 It 
should, however, be noticed that the idea satisfying the 
scientific or intellectual, answers also to the moral craving, 
only on condition that faith regards the universe teleologi- 
cally beyond the view of science as a system of wisely 
beneficent though inflexible order, — caring for the least 
while overruling and subordinating the greatest ; inwardly 
endowing and directing as well as outwardly imparting 
and controlling ; a special Providence, but not by special 
acts of interference ; and better providing for the individual 
through the perfect arrangements of the general than by 
responding to the short-sighted appeals of selfish devo- 
tion. The attitude of modern pantheism is one of hopeful 
> resignation, adding to belief in unbending law a by no 
1 means irrational faith in beneficent purpose. It is this 
which distinguishes it from Spinoza's, which, in discarding 
egoism, abandoned faith, and treated final causes as human 
fictions. 2 

1 " Beatitudo non est virtutis premium, sed ipsa virtus." 

2 Pantheism is more moral than theism, as affording the only plausible 
- explanation of freedom and of evil. For what becomes of free will — the very 
C basis of all morality — when confronted with eternal Omnipotence ? How can 

( "permissive evil" consist with a ruler assumed to be omnipotent as well as 
good ? What avails it to distinguish two or more wills in the divine mind, 
the antecedent, subsequent, or permissive, when the whole is covered by 

f Omnipotence ? Theism was thus obliged either to make a partial surrender 
of omnipotence to a satanic rival, or else to deny the substantial existence of 
evil. " Malum est bono carere ;" — " Nihil est malum," says Augustin, " nisi 
honi privatio." And yet the main charge against pantheism is that of ob- 



THE READJUSTMENT OF BELIEF. 71 

The idea of divine immanency was popularised by the 
great German poets, formed into a poetical philosophy by 

literating moral distinctions, and proclaiming the indifferency of human action 
under the plea of necessity. Indeed the same consideration which partly 
induces the theist to deny the unity of the world by separating God from 
it, led Spinoza, in restoring the unity, to deny moral distinctions. And, un- 
questionably, pantheistic as well as theistic ideas have sometimes been im- 
morally applied ; for instance by the Libertines of Geneva and the Brethren 
of the Free Spirit. But these aberrations were really a dereliction of pantheism, 
a subordination of the universal to the individual, making God a mere excuse 
for human passions and perversities ; and the paradoxes of Spinoza result 
not so much from pantheism, as from the abstract and imperfect character 
of a pantheism which absorbs all differences, and leaves no room for in- 
dividuality and freedom. Difficulties arise from insisting on the incessant 
and unseasonable use of the (relatively speaking) insane language of the 
absolute in a life made up of relativities. For who avers the absolute per- 
fection of the universe here or now, as contemplated within given limits of 
space or time ? "Who justifies crime or loves imperfection ? In the moral 
dialectics of the universe every wrong comes into inevitable conflict not only 
with right, but with other wrong ; each evil act implies another's wrongful 
suffering, inevitably leading to a reaction by which evil, a thing essentially 
self-refuting and self-defeating, is continually disappointed and extruded. 
For instance, the despot who pretends to exercise unlimited control over the 
will of others, contradicts himself by subverting the only ground on which any 
government can stand ; and so it is of evil generally, which destroys itself in 
the same proportion in which it undermines the conditions of social well-being. 
Perfection is humanly to be conceived only as an approximation or evolution. 
All may be divine; yet not always and alike divine ; as the colourless beam 
consists of indefinitely multitudinous pulsations and refractions emanating from 
one luminary, so the infinite unity ceases to be paradoxical if we allow for its 
infinite differences and gradations ; the universal may be as the microcosm of 
the human, that " mingled yarn of good and ill together," in which weakness 
and imperfection are at first the more prominently conspicuous, the better 
nature of the "inward man" realizing its inherent excellence only in slow 
processes of development, assimilation, extrusion, etc. ; often exhibiting 
symptoms of disease, and undergoing pain or even amputation, yet still 
evolving a better life, and on the whole evincing unceasing tendencies to 
good. In theism evil is admittted to be inexplicable, and human freedom is 
incompatible with divine absoluteness;* in Spinoza's pantheism, too, freedom 
disappears with evil, because the "infinite substance" is a dead abstraction, 
an .unreal necessity, still refusing to coalesce with the actual however you 
may insist on combining them. Think of it as the " self-subsisting," and the 
several members of the great organism become conceivably susceptible of 
approximate perfectibility and also of a relative freedom far more real than 
the severed freedom of the theist, though of course subject to general con- 
ditions ; a freedom, too, implying a dignity unknown to the theist, who is 
startled by_ the sentiment unhesitatingly versified by Angelus Silesius from 
Eccart, claiming the individual as the essential Now of the Eternal : 

" Ich weiss dass ohne mich Gott nicht ein Nun kann leben, 
W~erd' ich zu nicht er muss von Noth den Geist aufgeben." 

If these considerations be unsatisfactory, it will be vain to apply to theism 
for better. 

* Zeller, in the Tubingen Jahrbiicher, vol. vi. p. 218. 



72 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

Schelling, and reduced to a system of world-evolution by- 
Hegel. And assuredly it were a narrow piety which, 
under entirely altered circumstances of opinion and philo- 
sophy, should insist on limiting religion to the mere con- 
templation of the Infinite, while disparaging as unworthy 
the higher name all that we know or hope to know of the 
forms and arrangements of natural order. Only super- 
stitious prejudice or professional jealousy can wish to con- 
tinue the nominalistie severance of nature from God and 
science from religion. The latter reclaims only its proper 
right when, instead of dwelling apart in a remote corner 
of the soul, and sitting with folded arms and straining 
eyes before inexplicable mystery, it takes a free range 
throughout the dominion of the intellect, and confers a 
higher dignity on science by making it its own. " Quo 
magis rerum naturam cognoscimus, eo magis Deum cog- 
noscimus." Science may be truly religious even when 
theologically silent, and conscientiously holding itself aloof 
from teleological ideas. We are indemnified for the seem- 
ing blank encountered at the verge of the horizon by the 
beauties of the country traversed, and though unable to 
discern the source of light, see it indirectly refracted 
in the manifold colours of the transparency. The area of 
Natural theology has been properly extended beyond the 
limit which once made it the preface or appendix to a 
larger treatise, the mere preparatory introduction to 
revealed, or the repository of supplementary analogies to 
be invoked in its defence. The first of the " two books," 
now better understood, leaves us less dependent, on the 
second ; and the notion of Deity, detached from its niche 
outside the universe, enriches the entire circumference of 
nature and of thought. Nor can there be any reason 
why free idealism, emancipated from the embarrassing 
responsibilities of the dogmatist, should be scared by fears 
of inconsistency into restricting itself in these high matters 
to the contemplation of a single theory or system. Every 



SEVERANCE OF NATURAL FROM ARTIFICIAL BELIEF. 73 

system occupying a place in history may, in spite of 
Voltaire's ridicule, suggest something of instruction or of 
warning ; either as prescribing the aim and order of 
human existence, as marking out more carefully the limits 
of thought, or as illustrating the hazards of speculative 
extremes ; such as that which forgot the world in Spinoza, 
encountered an "infinite atom" in Leibnitz, 1 or verged to 
atheism and dogmatism in Hegel. But, apart from uncer- 
tainties of speculation, reflection finds a firm basis of 
faith and guide of practice in the moral order of the 
Universe, 2 superseding vain questionings about the nature 
of Deity, as intimated by Schiller in the lines, — 

" Fluchtet aus der Sinne Schranken 

In die Freiheit der Gedanken, 
IJnd die Furchterscheirmng ist entfiohn, 
TJnd der ew'ge Abgrund wird sich full en ; 
Nehmt die Gottheit auf in ihren Willen, 
TJnd sie steigt von ihrem "Weltenthron." 



General Severance of Natural from Artificial Belief. 

From the attempt to trace summarily the restorative 
work of philosophical theology, attention reverts to the 
general course of the negative or critical process which 
was constantly and intimately connected with it. The 
contest between faith and reason was from the earliest 
times a struggle for exclusive supremacy. But its form 
was a series of compromises, in the course of which, in 
proportion as the importance of natural religion was 
recognised, supernatural was more and more displaced 
as superfluous or impossible. No natural religion was 
recognised by the Eeformers ; yet their admission of a 

1 The inconsistencies of the Monadology in its last issues are pointed out 
by Kuno Fischer, Leibnitz und seine Schule, pp. 407, 505. 

2 The many phenomenal perplexities interfering with the theory of a moral 
theodicsea are well discussed by E. Zeller in three papers in the Tubingen 
Journal (Vols. 5 and 6). — " tjber die moralische Weltordnung." 



74 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

"notitiae scintillula," of an internal as well as external 
revelation, 1 contained the germ of important changes. 
The inner light became more prominently self-reliant and 
also more obviously inconsistent in Socinianism, which, 
while making revelation the sole source of religious 
knowledge, recognized in human nature independent 
germs of morality, and acknowledged this morality to be 
religious, even without the religious knowledge only to be 
got supernaturally. The Arminians admitted the possi- 

Ibility of a natural origination even of religious knowledge 
through due cultivation of the faculties ; but they thought 
revelation necessary, if not to render the impossible possi- 
ble, at least to make what was practically very difficult 
comparatively easy. Hesitation seems to vanish in Spi- 
noza ; to him reason was the sole revelation ; yet even 
he admitted the provisional utility at least of that pictu- 
resque Biblical form of it in which it is brought near to 
common understandings by aid of narrative and imagery. 
The incompatibility of reason and traditional faith was for 
s ? the first time distinctly asserted, though still with a different 
sort of reservation, by Bayle. 2 But before the contrariety 
could be clearly seen, and the ancillary relation of reason 
effectually obliterated and reversed, attempts to reconcile 
the jarring elements by forced artificial expedients were 
renewed in various forms. A new system of dogmatical 
scholasticism, similar in kind to that which had so signally 
failed already, was formed by the Protestant orthodoxy 
of the 17th century in the hands of Quenstedt, Calovius, 
and Voet. The path of compromise and equivocation 
was initiated by Socinianism, which like an open door- 
way became the avenue to better things, though in 

1 See "Ulrich Zwingli," by Chr. Sigwart, p. 44. 

2 The incompatibility was virtually recognised by the Nominalists ; Luther 
hesitated ; the Sorbonne anathematized the notion that a thing could be true 
in philosophy and at the same time false in theology ; Protestant theology 
treated revealed truths as necessarily contradictory to unregenerate reason ; 
Bayle as contradictory to man's reason generally. ^- 



SEVERANCE OF NATURAL FROM ARTIFICIAL BELIEF. 75 

itself affording no rest or shelter. Its acknowledgment 
of revelation was based on the idea of the supernatural as 
distinguished from the irrational ; on the plea that the 
relatively incomprehensible must not be confounded with 
the absolutely impossible ; on this footing it made partial 
modifications in the creed, torturing Scripture into har- 
mony with the residue, and reason into a superficial \ 
alliance with Scripture. Socinianism and Cartesianism 
were the sources of the so-called " theologia rationalis," 
or " rational supernaturalism." This has already been 
described as the self-subjection of reason, or unreason 
rationally (or sophistically) proved; it means that in 
order to reconcile faith and reason we have only to con- 
vince ourselves rationally (i.e., to argue ourselves into 
a belief) of the reality of a proposed revelation, and 
then submissively to accept its incomprehensible con- 
tents. The Deists contrived to avoid a direct conflict 
with Scripture by distinguishing its contained elements 
of natural religion as " essentials," or by trying to exclude 
the inference of its irrationality by the not very conclu- 
sive argument that there could be no real mysteries in 
revelation, since mystery was the very thing which it 
^was the object of revelation to remove. It became 
necessary to end these flimsy pretences, to disperse 
these misty exhalations of a former world, which dis- 
credited reason without effectually serving the cause of 
faith; and hence the sceptical free-thinker takes for the 
first time an attitude of open opposition to the professing 
religionist in Bayle, whose well-turned compliments to 
the creed may be regarded as a cautiously expressed 
prelude to the undisguised renunciation of it by Hume 
and Yoltaire. For however delicate the irony or obse- 
quious the tone assumed, the purport of the writer is 
unmistakeable. Incompatibility between the two elements 
no longer meant what it did in the time of Luther. The 
mental atmosphere had changed ; science had altered the 



76 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

view of the world, and cultivated reason could never more 
sincerely renew its mediaeval subserviency, The contra- 
riety which, as announced by Luther, implied the unques- 
tioned supremacy of faith, became in Bayle a virtual 
, display of the superiority of reason. Bayle showed the 
necessity of choosing between authority and philosophy ; 
and it was really far more conducive to the ultimate 
interests of religious truth to proclaim the contrariety 
under pretence of siding with faith, than to affect 
an impossible concealment by means of sophistical 
shifts and excuses. One of these still lingering shifts 
was the scholasticism of " Evidence," the basis of that 
" rational supernaturalism " which temporarily served 
to postpone the inevitable crisis and to prop the crazy 
edifice of theology, until the truth announced by Her- 
bert and Spinoza became more generally acknowledged 
in the recognition of reason and conscience as the only 
revelation, as the sole authority competent not only to 
furnish evidences of religion, but also its matter and sub- 
stance. Yet even at this extremity it seemed for a mo- 
ment possible, according to opinions inherited from Ar- 
minianism, to hold out for the utility and substantial 
reality of revelation ; to say that although really contain- 
ing no more than might have been had without it, it was 
the means of attaining more easily and speedily what 
• otherwise could only have been gained after great delay 
and difficulty. Lessing thought that revelation was to 
the human race what education is to the individual ; giving 
nothing which might not have been reached naturally, but 
giving it sooner and earlier. Kant too held, or seems to 
hold, that religion may be both natural and revealed 
simultaneously ; that though natural and rational in its 
contents, it may be supernatural in the mode of its intro- 
duction or communication ; } but he significantly adds that 
it is quite possible for this supernatural origin to be entirely 

1 "Religion innerhalb" etc., Part IV. ch. 1. 



SEVERANCE OF NATURAL FROM ARTIFICIAL BELIEF. 77 

forgotten, without any detriment to its essential validity 
and value. So that even this last reservation contains 
the principle of its own demolition. For if the supposed 
revelation contains nothing* whatever transcending reason, 
and consequently no internal proof of a divine origin, we 
are left entirely to external considerations to supply one ; 
of these historical testimony had already been shewn to 
be inadequate for the purpose; and there remained only 
the alternative of attempting to prove negatively that the 
material contents of the suggested revelation, although 
naturally discoverable, could not have been discovered 
naturally at the supposed place and time. But how is 
any one entitled to assume, in regard, for instance, to 
Christianity, that there existed no adequate natural capaci- 
ties in humanity to effect such a process of self-renewal ; 
that man's depravity at the time was too great, and his 
power of recovery too small, to bear any proportion to one 
another, so as to allow a natural explanation 1 Who can 
pretend to have acquired a sufficiently accurate knowledge 
of both co-efficients, to have formed so nice an estimate of all 
their measurements and bearings, as to be able to pronounce 
absolutely against the possibility of a natural adjustment of 
causes and results? The Platonic philosopher, Ficinus, 
dwelt long ago on the absurdity of supposing that God, 
who confers on all other animals the means of attainable 
perfection within the limits of their destiny as natural 
gifts, should have been less indulgent to man; and it 
seems equally incredible that he should have made good 
any such original omission by a supplementary act avail- 
able only for a small portion of mankind, and so very 
partially communicated from the time of the creation down 
to the present day. If there be one only way of salvation, 
a good and just God must be presumed to have placed that 
one within all men's reach. But how different the fact ! 
For four thousand years, according to the received chro- 
nology, divine truth was the monopoly of a single tribe ; 



78 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

even now Christianity is confined to comparatively few, 
and its profession is rather an accident of birth than the 
result of meritorious preference or conviction. Hence 
Zwingli, Melancthon, and even Luther, 1 as represented 
in his " Table Talk," were led to express a diffident hope 
that some exceptional grace or at least mitigation of punish- 
ment may have been provided for the exemplary heathen ; 
but then it is impossible to stop abruptly at a particular 
limit or partial relaxation of the rule ; revelation, if dis- 
pensed with in a few instances, can be absolutely necessary 
in none ; and we come at last to the issue of Spinoza, that 
Turks and other infidels may be unquestionably saved, 
notwithstanding their ignorance of revelation, by the prac- 
tice of justice and charity. 

So that revelation appeared to be wholly unnecessary; 
and ere long it began to be clearly seen that in the 
ordinary meaning it is not only unnecessary but im- 
possible. A supernatural revelation, like all other cases 
of alleged miracle, implies the essential absurdity of 
supposing change in the unchangeable, imperfection in 
the perfect on the side of God; and on that of man 
mere ignorance most unwarrantably changed twice over 
into pretended knowledge, first denying a natural cause, 
and then assuming the existence of a supernatural one. 
Actual inability to account for a certain statement, doc- 
trine, or book, by no means proves the absolute impos- 
sibility of doing so ; nor even if it be impossible, is the 
book therefore proved to be divine. And even supposing 
a revelation possible, how can it be certified or known? 
How can we be assured in regard to an assumed divine 
communication that no delusion has been practised either 
by ourselves or others ? — Such were the arguments of 

1 Luther, however, says in his "Larger Catechism" (2, 3, 56), " Quicunque 
extra Christianitatem sunt, sive Gentiles, sive Turcae, sive Judsei, quanquam 
unum tantum et verum Deum esse credant et invocent, neque certum habent 
quo erga eos animatus sit animo, neque quidquam. favoris aut gratia? de Deo 
sibi polliceri audent aut possunt ; quare in perpetua manent ira et damnatione." 



SEVERANCE OF NATURAL FROM ARTIFICIAL BELIEF. 79 

Spinoza, Tindal, and afterwards of Fichte ; and it little 
aided the cause of supernaturalism to revive with Leibnitz 
the old plea that revelation was "preformed;" 1 that its 
germs were originally implanted in nature so as to come 
out phenomenally at a particular time and place ; since in 
this way Christianity were no more really miraculous than 
printing, or any other discovery manifested in the course 
of time, and resulting from man's natural endowment. 
Miracle and revelation cease in this view to be transient 
acts, and resolve themselves into the perennial agency of 
nature. This was the true meaning of the author of the 
theory ; but Leibnitz united with the character of philo- 
sopher that of cosmopolitan philanthropist, too intent on 
reconciling every thing in heaven and earth to be stopped 
by a few logical inconsistencies. These, however, challenged 
attention among his followers ; overlooked by Wolf, the long 
impending crisis secretly fermented in Reimarus, and scared 
the world in the unexpected disclosure of Lessing. Reimarus 
was publicly known as author of a work on natural religion, 
in which he edified admiring readers with his refutation of 
atheism, materialism, and Spinoza, by means of the argu- 
ment of design; an argument never wholly irrelevant, 
although the treatises enforcing it are generally valuable in 
proportion as they confine themselves to science and avoid 
theological inferences. But Reimarus had imbibed the 
philosophical ideas of Leibnitz ; and how had the world 
been shocked could it have known that this excellent 
defender of the faith, this exemplary hierophant of the 
vestibule, would have refused to have entered the temple ; 
that he utterly scorned and rejected its doctrines and 
practices as repulsive and idolatrous; that at the very 
time when they were perusing his published work with 
so much unction, the author was diligently engaged in 
the composition of another (" Apology for the Rational 

1 The old argument of Augustin and of Poniponatius de Incantationi- 
bus, etc. 



80 GENERAL ANTECEDENTS. 

Worship of God") 1 containing a complete refutation and 
disclaimer of the proceedings of the Jewish or Bible God, 
and of which the ominous " Wolfenbuttel Fragments" pub- 
lished afterwards by Lessing, were but an inconsiderable 
specimen ! In short, the God of reason — as whispered 
by Lessing to Jacobi, — was the God of Spinoza ; and with 
this the God of revelation was incompatible. — Luther 
asserted the contrariety of reason and revelation in the 
interests of revelation ; Spinoza evaded the acknowledg- 
ment of absolute contrariety in order to protect the 
interests of philosophy ; Bayle reasserted the contrariety 
in ostensible disparagement of reason,, but really in the 
spirit of Voltaire ; Reimarus wrote the irrevocable verdict 
that in the very interests of religion itself the irra- 
tionalities of the Bible must be seriously and absolutely 
rejected. 

1 This hitherto unpublished work, of which MS. copies exist in Hamburg 
and Gottingen, began to be printed in Medner's "Zeitschrift," but was 
suspended owing to the public indifference (see Herzog's Theol. Lexicon, 12, 
p. 609). A compendium has recently been edited by Strauss. 



PAET II, 

SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 



Origin of Historical Criticism. 

The process of enfranchisement and reconstruction, 
which has been followed to its virtual close in one direction 
in the preceding paragraphs, opened the way for a new 
course of enquiry in another. There remained the now 
for the first time possible task of reclaiming what had 
hitherto been an object of stupid wonder or of equally 
irrational contempt, as legitimate materials of history. 
The concessions as to inspiration, and the partial severance 
of the Bible from religious interests through the negations 
and distinctions of rationalism, made room for the further 
labours of the critic. The first necessity of criticism is 
freedom ; and the first general restoration of a free at- 
mosphere in religious matters is due to the Reformation— - 
itself a critical act, as condemning many preceding prac- 
tices and traditions ; and indeed every accession of know- 
ledge is a verdict of previous incompetency, — every new 
revolution or discovery may be said to imply a judgment 
on the incompleteness and imperfection of the past, so 
that — 

"Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht." l 

But the first exercise of Protestant free judgment extended 
only to what was most obviously corrupt in immediate 
antecedents in favour of a projected return to the primitive 
Christian model; this model was assumed to be immediately 

1 " The World's History is the World's Judgment." 



82 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

and plainly discoverable in the writings of the New Testa- 
ment ; — and the Bible generally was in great measure 
protected against impartial enquiry by the circumstance 
of its being itself taken as the indispensable basis of the 
newly asserted freedom, the very foundation of the Re- 
formation itself. Professedly the sole criterium of the 
reformed faith was the " Word of God/' as contained in 
the " prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and New 
Testaments." But the German and Swiss Confessions, by 
omitting to specify the writings intended, virtually left 
open the right of ultimate adjudication to reason and 
conscience ; J and several Confessions, while adopting the 
Catholic or traditional list of. books, claimed to take them 
not from church dictation, but from the "intrinsic testi- 
mony or persuasion" of the Holy Spirit. This encouraged 
considerable laxity in deciding the difficult problem as to 
what particular books should be considered as irrefragably 
divine ; so that most of the early Reformers exercised to 
a certain extent the right of free judgment in separating 
the Apocrypha from the Old Testament, and the so called 
" Antilegomena" or disputed writings 2 from the New. It 

1 Generally called in the language of the period the "inner witness;" or 
more particularly expressed in current Biblical phraseology as the principle 
of justification by faith only. 

2 The boohs commonly placed among "Antilegomena" are Hebrews, James, 
2nd Peter, Jude, 2nd and 3rd John, and Bevelations. A very extensive 
and miscellaneous literature was current in primitive Christianity. Many 
books not now included in the New Testament, as Hernias and the Kerugma 
Petrou, were received with implicit reverence as inspired in local usage ; 
while others now standing in the canon where doubted or rejected. Doctrinal 
controversies induced the necessity of exercising a choice among the writings, 
and of subjecting the fluctuations of usage to fixed limits; Eusebius of 
Caesarea being the first who in the interests of ecclesiastical discipline seriously 
addressed himself to the task of forming a uniform code or canon (see Euseb. 
Hist. Ec. iii. 3 and 25). His mode of proceeding was to separate the existing 
literature into two principal divisions as suggested by custom and the prac- 
tical preferences of the different churches. First, the universally admitted 
writings or " Homologoumena ; " secondly, writings not so generally esteemed ; 
the latter were again subdivided into "Antilegomena" or controverted writings ; 
*'Notha," writings which though not divine were not fraudulent; and thirdly, 
the arova and Svaaefiri — the productions of literary fraud. The principle 
acted on by Eusebius and subsequently was not criticism, but tradition and 
usage. See Credner's History of the Canon, p. 202. 



ORIGIN OF HISTORICAL CRITICISM. 83 

is notorious how Luther distinguished the fourth Gospel, 
together with the first Petrine and principal Pauline 
Epistles, as the only indispensable Scriptures; and how 
he stigmatised James, Hebrews, and Revelations, as repul- 
sive to his feelings and offensive to the Christian spirit. 

But these first attempts at criticism were crude and 
ineffectual. Stability and establishment were felt at the 
time to be far more pressing needs than historical truth 
or literary accuracy. A great reaction set in ; the feeling 
which led the English church as well as the Council of 
Trent to a blind acquiescence in the traditional " Canon" 
became general ; hesitation was thought excusable no 
longer ; the Bible, instead of being the reflex and support 
of a living subjective idea, became the object of a stupid 
idolatry ; the sacred text as traditionally given L was pro- 
nounced to be infallible and divine in its every word and 
letter ; the distinction of deutero-canonical writings was 
dropped, and various subtle pretences were devised to 
conceal as much as possible the fact of its having ever 
existed. 2 In fact only the obscurer impulses of the great 
movement had been hitherto felt. Practical abuses were far 
more readily obvious than impurities of belief. The belief 
in witchcraft and supernatural appearances generally was 
yet unchecked by physical discovery ; intolerance was 
inculcated in the Catechism, 3 and dancing and playgoing 
forbidden as breaches of the seventh commandment. The 
tyranny of prejudice is never so absolute as when it is 
unfelt. In the seventeenth century its influence was so 
insidiously prevalent that the very word, in the sense of 
anticipated judgments, was unfamiliar or unknown ; Bacon 



1 " Ut vulgo recepti sunt," says the English Article in regard to the hooks 
of the New Testament. 

2 Thus it was said that the distinction referred, not to any douht as to the 
authority of the hooks, but only as to the secondary authorship ; not to a 
difference of worth, hut only to relative antiquity, etc., etc. See Keuss' 
"History of the New Testament," sees. 339, 340. 

3 See Luther's " Major Catechism," above quoted, 2, 3, sect. 56. 



84 



SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 



uses for it the figurative term " idolatry ;" meaning that 
superstitious worship or " apotheosis of error" which he 
calls " the plague spot of the intellect." 

i The sources of superstition are ignorance and fear ; these 
in the Protestant mind clung round the notion of inspira- 

' tion ; and the first efforts of a really free criticism could of 
course proceed only from those who were either wholly or 
partially emancipated from its influence ; either from phi- 
losophers, who acknowledged no Scripture control, or from 
Catholics, who admitted it only under certain limitations. 
Hence Richard Simon and Spinoza, the one a Catholic, the 
other a philosopher, were the fathers of Biblical criticism. 
Simon's critical histories of the Old and New Testaments, 
based on historical tradition as distinct from ecclesiastical, 
were the first general attempt to treat the Bible with 
adequate learning on the footing of a literary work ; but 
they dwell almost exclusively on what is called external 
criticism ; the history of the text, the versions, and the 
commentators ; there is no thoroughly impartial apprecia- 
tion of the contents of particular books, determining their 
history by the consecutive development of ideas. Simon's 
histories form an invaluable repository of those external 
" facts" which form the basis of the scriptural exegesis 
of Arminianism, and generally of the theology styled 
" rational," as opposed to the notions of plenary inspiration 
which in ordinary Protestantism excluded all enquiry. 
Simon treats the fanatical idea of the " inner witness" as 
the essential heresy of Protestantism ; but then Catholic 
criticism is quite as liable to be marred by dogmatical 
restraint as that of Protestants by misdirected freedom. 
Simon's criticism is based on an enlarged theory of tradi- 
tion ; and this permitted a certain freedom in dealing with 
points which tradition had already controverted, such as 
the question of the " Antilegomena," the Hebrew original 
of Matthew, the interpolated " three witnesses" in 1 John 
v. 7 — the difference between canonicity and authenticity, 



ORIGIN OF HISTORICAL CRITICISM. 85 

and some other literary problems. In his work on the 
Old Testament he disclaims at the ontset the idea of the 
Pentateuch in its present form being a work of Moses ; 
and recognises in this and several other of the historical 
books of the Old Testament the work of later- compilers. 
Certain persons, he tells us, acted as public scribes, who, 
exercising at the same time the office of preachers and 
prophets, were appointed to commit to writing matters 
generally relating to religion and politics, as well as their 
own popular addresses ; these materials were from time 
to time sifted or remodelled, until, after the exile, the 
residuary matter was reduced to the form in which we 
have it in the Old Testament. 

But Simon's general object is to support tradition, and 
to maintain the authenticity of the apostolic writings ; as 
a true Catholic, he could not go beyond the limits of 
testimony in order to engage in that higher criticism, 
which, acting on the true Protestant principle of free en- 
quiry and self-reliance, must often proceed to question the 
validity of tradition itself. Spinoza's criticism, though less 
copious in learned detail, is absolutely free, and on that 
account as well as others far more interesting philosophi- 
cally. It forms a summary anticipation of all the succes- 
sive victories gained over prejudice and intolerance in so ^ 
many various directions during the seventeenth and eigh- 
teenth centuries, and leads the way not only in negative 
but positive results. Its general aim is similar to that of 
the deists ; the elimination of form and fanciful imagery, 
and extracting the true Scripture essence or " Word of 
God" by aid of the moral intuitions. Its first task is to 
dissipate the false notion as to " prophecy" or inspiration ; 
to divest it of its imposing haze by tracing its psychological 
origin, and then shewing that after discarding the conven- 
tional imagery addressed to vulgar minds, nothing remains 
except a popularly impressive representation of those 
elementary moral truths, which may be attained, and 



86 



SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 



better attained, by the rational intellect in another way. 
Then Spinoza proceeds to insist on the necessity of a faith- 
ful Bible history, in the form of a detailed analysis of the 
several books, the circumstances of the authors, the date 
and occasion of the composition, etc., in order to form a 
basis for sound interpretation ; and while admitting his 
own inability adequately to supply this want, caused by 
the neglect or malice of the ancients, he points out so 
clearly the marks of later origin in the Pentateuch and 
other historical books, exposes their errors of omission and 
commission, especially the anachronisms, so convincingly, 
that no one unprepared to concede a divine authority to 
the Jewish constructors of the Canon, could remain entirely 
blind to their real character. And not only did Spinoza set 
the example of carefully studying the external history of 
the Bible, of separating essence from form, and indeed of 
all the various expedients successively adopted in order to 
bring its contents by means of quantitative and qualitative 
modification into harmony with modern convictions ; we 
shall hereafter have occasion to notice that he also led the 
way in shewing how the whole of the documents, including 
the local, temporary, and other matter which ordinary 
deism threw aside as irrelevant or unmeaning, may be philo- 
sophically construed as illustrating the psychological con- 
ditions of their literary origin, in the same way as in other 
human records. His general views passed to the English 
and French deists, and indeed suggested the above-men- 
tioned hypothesis of Simon as to the origin of the historical 
books of the Old Testament ; but they were ill understood 
and remained comparatively unfruitful until the following 
century, when Astruc, Vater, Eichhorn, and Gesenius con- 
tributed to dissipate the last mists of that prejudice which 
made the idea of historical growth and development seem, 
in the eyes of Protestants, as inapplicable to the Bible, as 
in those of Catholics it had always appeared to the church. 



INCREASE OF LEARNING. 87 

Increase of Learning. 

Spinoza's Biblical criticism, like his philosophy in 
general, is not to be treated as an entirely satisfactory execu- 
tion of the proposed task, so much as an uncompromising 
assertion of that freedom which is its primary and most 
^essential condition. And this leads to the notice of a 
second indispensable requisite for its adequate accomplish- 
ment, namely knowledge. Even among those most eman- 
cipated from prejudice, criticism was impeded by insuf- 
ficient knowledge of the facts, and too implicit a reliance 
on common feeling or uninstructed judgment. Thus in 
the very infancy of the canon, Origen and Dionysius of 
Alexandria disputed the apostolical origin of the Apo- 
calypse on grounds partly indeed critical, but chiefly from 
uncritical dislike or personal antipathy to its doctrines. 
When indeed Dionysius attempted to shew from the 
differences as to style and character distinguishing the 
book in question from the fourth Gospel, — that it could 
not have the same author, his reasoning was undoubtedly 
critical ; but the rejection was mainly based on the 
dislike of chiliasm entertained by the objectors, and by 
the variance of the opinions advocated from their own. 
So too when Luther first turned round upon the church, 
and felt nerved by the mere internal force of religious 
conviction to deal freely even with parts of the New Testa- 
ment, his elections and rejections were critically valueless, 
because founded on mere subjective preference and arbi- 
trary feeling. The forced exegesis of the Socinians was 
a result of their unsatisfactory hesitation between Scrip- 
ture-reliance and self-reliance, arbitrarily making Scrip- 
ture into a reflection of their own views of doctrine ; and 
deistic criticism consisted for the most part only of the 
first hurried negations of uninstructed common sense. 
And there was little difference in this respect between 
Supernaturalists and Deists : the one discarded revelation 



88 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

on grounds very similar to those on which the others 
retained it ; one holding the so-called " vital" portions of 
the Bible as reflecting' their own intuitive feelings of reli- 
gion ; while the others retained the assumed quintessence 
on the ground of its being inspired. The century inter- 
vening between Spinoza and Semler was a period of tran- 
sition, during which criticism gradually emerged from 
superficiality and subjectivity. The self-reliance gained in 
different ways, either through reason or feeling, and mani- 
fested in pietism and deism, required above all things to be 
educated, in order to deal with the obscure questions of 
literary history ; the position of free thought had to be 
fenced, cleared, and cultivated ; greater learning was re- 
quired to refute the false learning and one-sided " Evi- 
dences" of interested apologists. These healthier influences 
came, be it recollected, not from churches, but from ex- 
ternal sources. Thus when Toland made the facility of 
literary forgery in recent times, as evinced in the case of 
" Icon Basilike," a means of accounting for similar abuses 
in early Christian literature, he had first to prove the fact 
of such abuses by furnishing his adversary Blackhall with 
a detailed list of spurious Acts, Epistles, Gospels, and 
Apocalypses, falsely attributed to Christ or the Apostles, 
of whose existence the theologians of the day admitted 
their entire ignorance. Indeed the holy ignorance of 
churchmen is proverbial. Tertullian's well known dis- 
claimer of Athens, and Gregory's of the Latin grammar, 
anticipated only too exactly the barbarous disinclination 
for learning so generally prevalent subsequently. Charle- 
magne was startled at discovering the wide-spread incom- 
petency of the clergy, when even the Episcopal chiefs of 
Christendom were unable to write their names. " Chris- 
tianity," says John Paul Bichter, " was a day of doom to 
the graces and adornments of human life, and made the 
grave of literature a step to the gate of heaven." It has 
been said that the church helped to preserve what Chris- 



INCREASE OF LEARNING. 89 

tianity tends 7 to destroy, and that in the complex provi- 
dential arrangements of good and ill the very corruptions 
of Rome, its centralisation, liturgies, and monasteries, were 
instrumental in preserving the Latin language. Doubtless 
religion, the earliest civiliser, is also the last mental stay 
of a sinking age ; but church learning was a technical 
tradition comparatively valueless in itself, and generally 
inaccessible to the laity ; it was rare and exceptional even 
among the clergy. 1 ** The bishops," says a mediaeval 
poet, "are men honoured and appointed by God to pro- 
mote obedience to his laws. But how do they execute 
their trust ? They are incapable of preaching themselves, 
and they discourage those who can. Would you know 
why ? It is that they want their priests to be as ignorant 
as themselves ; an absurdity unparalleled by the blind, 
who are at least wise enough to choose some one who 
can see to lead them." 2 

Polite literature, the literature of " humanity," (litterae 
humaniores) had no substantive interest for the schools, 
where it was resorted to only to furnish its quota to 
theology. Art and literature revived only when ascetical 
religion declined. In her true character the Church 
could not brook any authority but her own, or admit 
the value of a treasure of which she did not hold 
the keys. The present Bishop of Oxford is fond of 
reminding literary men and artists at convivial meetings 3 
that the revival of art and literature was especially the 
work of the church. But this is true only of the church 
already secularised, of the half-heathen church of Borgia, 
of Julius, and of Leo. Literature revived not by the aid, 
but against the opposition, of monkish Christendom. Pe- 
trarch was an especial foe of the " dialectici " or school- 

1 Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. iii., p. 332. Gieseler's K. G., vol. ii., 1, 
82-84. 

2 See Gervinus, History of German poetry, vol. i. p. 438. 

3 See account of the dinner of the Royal Literary Fund, May 22, 1855. 



90 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

men ; and his successors wholly renounced the lingering 
reverential scruples of their master. Marsigli was an Aver- 
roist ; x Boccaccio had to defend the favourite studies of his 
later years against theologians and lawyers ; and he relates 
how on enquiring for the library of the celebrated convent 
of Monte Cassino he was drily told, " take the narrow 
staircase to the right, — you'll find the door open ; " and 
how accordingly he discovered only the mutilated remains 
of a once large collection, the books having been torn and 
used as blank paper by a poor brother for the manufacture 
of psalters and breviaries at five sous each. The Eefor- 
mation had the immediate effect of temporarily arresting 
the progress of the intellectual culture of the Kenaissance, 
especially in the country where the religious side of the 
movement was most effectually developed. Luther was 
far more universally listened to and understood than Eras- 
mus ; and the revival of learning, although an essential, 
remained for a long time a distinct tributary to the general 
current of thought. And it was fortunate that, instead of 
being monopolised by a caste, the advantages of erudition 
were impartially diffused from the first. Printing opened 
to all opportunities of learning, and made the Bible public 
property. The labours of Erasmus purified the text, 
and the general growth of learning prepared the means 
for its more accurate interpretation. During the 17th 
and 18th centuries the severed forces coalesced, and the 
purifying currents of classical antiquity inundated the 
dusty imbroglio which had been adopted by churches 
from mediaeval theology. Selden reproved the laziness 
L and ignorance of the clergy, complaining that their credit 
reposed on nothing but beard and breviary ; Spencer, in 
his work on Hebrew Laws, unveiled, to the horror of 

1 Averroism represents the philosophic side of the free thought of the middle 
age. Another form of free thought was the Provencal and Minnesinger 
poetry ; another again, the speculative self-centred mysticism of Eccart and 
others, of whose more practical and popular manifestations the religious refor- 
mation of Luther was one. 



TEXT CRITICISM. 



91 



theologians, the heathen origin of many Mosaic institu- 
tions ; the celebrated Bochart shewed what learning could 
do to illustrate Scripture history and geography ; Grotius, 
Clericus, Huet, Bentley, Bayle, etc., promoted in different 
directions the spirit of enquiry ; and Richard Simon espe- 
cially braved theological odium by the freedom of his 
researches. In Germany philological studies were vigo- 
rously resumed after the thirty years' war by many 
illustrious scholars ; Bengel, for instance, revived in the 
Lutheran Church a spirit which had slumbered since 
Erasmus ; John A. Fabricius, the father-in-law of Eei- 
marus, published among other learned labours his " Codex 
Pseudepigraphus Veteris et Novi Testament!," a collection 
of apocryphal writings which it is especially essential to 
keep in view in considering the claims of the canonical 
ones ; Schoettgen, author of " Horse Hebraicse," and Wett- 
stein, of an excellent commentary containing copious 
Eabbinical and other illustrations of the New Testament ; 
J. H. Michaelis, and his nephew, Chr. B. Michaelis, suc- 
cessively professors of Oriental literature and theology at 
Halle ; Mosheim, whose labours in ecclesiastical history 
are an epoch in that department; Ernesti and Griesbach, 
both eminent for liberality as well as learning, and who, 
though generally confining themselves to the lower walks 
of Biblical enquiry, laid a foundation for others to build 
on, and greatly facilitated the labours of future critics by 
the ample materials they collected. 



Text Criticism. — Bengel, Wettstein, etc. 

For a long time the efficient use of these materials was 
thwarted and delayed by timidity and prejudice. Criticism 
was confined in range and narrow in tone ; it ventured only 
into the humbler walks of textual or archaeological illustra- 
tion, and was still more faulty in spirit than deficient 



92 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

in resource. It was not the fair sentence of impartial 
judgment formed after a full review of facts, but the one- 
sided pleading of interested advocacy. Its efforts were 
apologetical ; addressed to allay the feeling of uneasiness 
arising from those misgivings as to the accuracy of the 
text, by which Bengel complained of having in his early 
years been " cruelly lacerated." For it was clear that 
nothing but a continued miracle could have preserved the 
sacred records amid the corruptions and contaminations to 
which they had been for ages exposed, and whose actual 
intrusion was but too clearly proved by the various read- 
ings. "These difficulties," says Bengel, "led me to a 
closer investigation of the subject ; a work arduous in- 
deed, and full of religious horror, but which, by God's 
grace, at last brought peace and consolation to my heart." 
The sources of consolation were two ; first, his conviction 
that, despite corruptions, the integrity of the text had been 
providentially so far preserved as to satisfy enquiry in 
regard to essentials ; and, secondly, that this search might 
be usefully and safely confided to the instinctive sagacity 
of pious souls, guided by the unmistakeable "flavour" or 
"aroma" of inspiration. The same problem is more 
rationally and plainly stated by Mill in his " Prolego- 
mena," as an attempt to restore the true tenour of the 
apostolic autographs, " in order to escape the perplexities 
and baffle the objections of unbelief." Eichard Simon's 
criticism, founded as above mentioned on historical tra- 
dition, was at bottom an advocacy of precedent and usage, 
of which the legitimate expression is already furnished to 
our hands in the Canon itself; and even Wettstein, who, 
claiming no Scripture instinct or party bias, betrays his 
•comparatively unprejudiced laxity by confronting the New 
Testament writers with a vast array of Rabbinical and 
Classical parallelisms, quietly replaces the " Antilegomena" 
so long noted as doubtful in the list of genuine writings, 
carelessly accepting " Hebrews," the Greek Matthew, etc., 



WHAT IS CANONICITY? 93 

as authentic, ascribing the suggestion of an original Hebrew- 
Matthew to an unwarranted conjecture of the Fathers, and 
objecting only to the Epistle of James. A criticism thus 
hampered with foregone conclusions was of course un- 
worthy of the name ; and its range was as narrow as its 
spirit. The learned Prolegomena of the time are almost 
exclusively philological; they continue to deal with ver- 
sions, manuscripts, and texts. Still it was a great ad- 
vantage to have the traditional circumstances of the Canon 
methodically stated, and the historical evidence arranged ; 
these preliminary matters were carefully resumed and 
epitomised in the celebrated " Introduction " of J. D. 
Michaelis; their ulterior and more thorough application 
was reserved for a later period. 



What is Canonicity ? — Sender. 

The obstacle to true criticism was the vague notion of 
" Canonicity," the idea of a peculiar prerogative exempting 
certain writings from the treatment applicable to others. 
" If," says a recent controversialist, 1 " we admit that the 
Bible is not like other books, that it contains a direct 
communication from God to man, we place it at once in a 
separate category, and are forbidden to analyse it with 
the freedom applied to Sophocles or Plato." If, instead of 
considering God's spirit as author, and the several writers 
as amanuenses, we treat the writers as separately and 
originally answerable for their assertions, we lose the con- 
venient resource of expounding one part by another, and 
balancing what we dislike by that which better suits our 
tastes and judgments. History, however, too clearly re- 

1 The Eev. James Fendall on the Authority of Scripture, pp. 80, 82. 
Similarly we find the lately appointed bishop, Dr. Ellicott (Preface to " Life 
of our Lord," pp. iv. and vi.), and even Br. Arnold (Life, vol. ii., p. 60, 
Ed. 1858) anxiously disclaiming impartiality in dealing with religious 
subjects. 



94 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

veals the nature of the process by which the canon was 
formed, to allow the continued application of this mode of 
interpreting it as if it were a single book. It shews that 
the selected literature of the New Testament was no result 
of deliberate research, but a deposit of fluctuating usage 
actuated by theological and party bias ; — a result of local 
preference silently expanding into general acquiescence, 
and at last obtaining the formal sanction of the church. 
The word " Canon" has been satisfactorily shewn by F. C. 
Baur 1 to have originally meant not a law or rule of belief, 
but only a "list" or " catalogue" of writings, the term 
referring not to the validity of the contents, but only to the 
constituted form ; — i.e. certain books defined or appointed 
by the church, and which in consequence of that appoint- 
ment, became invested with a normative character. The 
canon, historically and strictly \ speaking, is therefore a 
mere Catholic institution or tradition ; anal as such ought 
in consistency to have been left by Protestants to share 
the fate of the other traditions of which the English Article 
frankly admits it to be part. But the real meaning of the 
term, merged, in consequence of the pretensions of Catholi- 
cism to represent the true church, in the secondary or 
substituted one of an infallible or praeternaturalis - given 
code; and Protestantism, in this, as in other instances, 
supers titiously adopted an idol created by hostile hands. 
The stringency of what Coleridge sarcastically calls " the 
tenet " 2 depends on belief in inspiration ; and this suggested 
the rule adopted by Bengel, and so perseveringly adhered 
to since, that Scripture being the expression of one divine 
economy, we are not to " harp on particular passages, but 
to look to the general tendency and analogy of the whole." 
L Such a rule obviously leads to all kinds of misconstruction 
and perversion. The movement of the eighteenth century 
dissipated to a great extent the haze of imputed sanctity, 

1 See Hilgenf eld's Zeitsehrift fur "Wissenschaft. Theologie., vol. i., p. 146. 

2 Coleridge's " Confessions," p. 68. 



WHAT IS CAN0NIC1TY? 95 

diminishing at least its intensity and range. The Armi- 
nians, the philosophers, nay Bengel himself, worked in this 
direction, by distinguishing substance from form, and 
admitting an increasing amount of human initiation or 
co-operation ; so that at last inspiration was limited to the 
sense in which it is admitted by Socrates, Lessing, and 
Spinoza, as " the light that lighteth every man," or the 
providential " education of the human race," — the irradia- 
tion diffused universally, but of course in varying measure, 
and with varying degrees of intelligence and appreciation. 

One of the most effectual agents in carrying the ideas 
and modes of interpretation first introduced in this enlarged 
view of revelation by Spinoza into the received Biblical 
theology was J. S. Semler, who, separating what he called 
the " moral essence" of Scripture from Scripture in the 
gross, proceeded, apart from an unexplained infinitesimal 
residuum, to secularize the whole. Semler unreservedly 
adopts the true historical meaning of the word "Canon" 
as a list or catalogue. Hitherto, he says, all books in- 
cluded in a certain list have been supposed to be inspired ; 
but this opinion is no more conclusive than many other 
vulgar opinions requiring correction; neither the Jewish 
nor the Christian editors of the commonly accredited list 
can pretend, apart from a tradition which has ceased to 
be sufficient Protestant authority, to have been divinely 
directed in executing their task. " Doubtless," continues 
Semler, " the human mind is brought by God's Word into 
better frame and temper ; but then it is not Scripture 
bound up in one volume to which we owe this salutary 
change : for there are Jews and even Christians who know 
the Bible almost by heart, and are yet but little the better 
for it. It may perhaps be objected that by thus dealing 
with the subject I make the sacred rule or principium cog- 
noscendi invisible or uncertain ; but this is by no means 
so ; and the reader need not be alarmed when I tell him 
that many of the best informed students of the Bible are 



96 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

/ unable to consider some parts of it as calculated to 
edify." 1 And so the outspoken professor went on to 
apply to individual books the same free treatment which 
he applied to the aggregate collection ; nor was there 
anything in the proceeding inconsistent with the prin- 
ciples of Protestantism. Semler in fact only restored 
in an altered form the right of the " testimonium spi- 
ritus" or inner witness, which in Luther had already 
excluded certain books, as the Apocalypse and " James," 
from the list of Scriptures, when, on behalf of the 
moral reason, he ventured to extend the disclaimer from 
obnoxious books to whatever appeared in each book to 
be local, temporary, or otherwise merely relative and 
adventitious ; nor could there be any practical limit to 
the measure in which, under such treatment, the fal- 
lible and human might be presumed to mingle with the 
divine. " Every reasonable man," says Semler, "is not 
only authorised but bound to exercise his judgment on 
these matters to the best of his ability without fear or 
favour; and wherever he discovers anything unworthy of 
the Almighty, or anything destitute of the power of 
making himself wiser or better, he must not rebel against 
conscience, or from unworthy deference to custom and 
authority pretend to find truth and benefit in what he 
is inwardly convinced to be useless or false." Semler's 
criticism had in this way a direct tendency to promote the 
historical treatment of the Bible, to exhibit its several 
parts under the aspect of relativity, as products of par- 
ticular persons, countries, and times. From the view 
since termed " supernatural rationalism," depending upon 
internal moral insight considered as a revelation, it super- 
seded dogmatical " canonicity," and like the Greek Fathers 
and even some New Testament authorities, 2 liberally ex- 
tended the attribute of inspiration to the edifying writings 

1 Essay on Free Inquiry into the Canon. 

2 Acts xvii. 18 ; 2 Tim. iii, 16, as interpreted by Tertullian. 



WHAT IS CANONICITT? 97 

of heathens. In short, it made the whole subject of Scrip- 
ture into a problem, decidedly excluding some writings, as 
the Apocalypse, from all title to be held sacred, and leaving 
a multitude of others as provisional sources of divine 
knowledge to those only to whose intellectual condition 
they seemed to be temporarily suited. Nay, it enabled its 
author to anticipate vaguely and generally several of the re- 
cent inferences of the Tubingen School. Semler referred the 
constituent elements of the New Testament to two classes 
or lines of opinion, — the Judaising and the Pauline ; or the 
gospel of the circumcision and that of the uncircumcision ; 
a distinction referred to in Galatians ii. 7, but overlooked 
by the compilers of the Canon and early Fathers, who, 
absorbed in the effort to secure external unity, were pre- 
vented from accurately appreciating the true character 
of the writings collected by them. The actual Canon 
thus presents a misleading medley of heterogeneous writings, 
which, before the commencement of the centralising or 
catholising spirit had been sufficiently distinct. Semler 
also revived the "Antilegoinena," including even the 1st 
Peter among the number ; he saw too that the use of the 
canonical Gospels had been preceded by that of an unca- 
nonical one, represented by the " Apostolic Memorials" 
quoted by Justin, Papias, and Hegesippus; and he ex- 
plained the origin of " Acts " in the way recently sug- 
gested as an effort to mediate between hostile parties or 
"families of Christians." 1 

But there was something in this mode of treatment 
which led away from historical criticism, and made the 
results arrived at unsatisfactory. Semler's main object 
was not to study the local and temporary aspects, or what 
he called the " Judaising element" of Scripture merely on 
its own account, but rather for the purpose of more 
effectually separating the chaff from what he held to be 

1 See Hilgenfeld on the Canon, p. 116 ; also the new Real-Encyclopadie 
fur Protestantische Theologie, vol. xiv. p. 262, 

7 



98 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

the moral essence or truly divine " word." Thus the 
phantom of inspiration continued after the reality had 
vanished, like a morbid impression on the retina after the 
disappearance of the object. To the canonicity of inspira- 
tion succeeded spurious substitutes in the shape of a "senti- 
mental" 1 and a " moral" canonicity, and also a canonicity 
of " genuineness." Semler, retaining the semblance after 
relinquishing the substance, and secularising one after 
another the books pretending to it, had now to explain 
what is the worth or meaning of the term " Canon," when 
so denuded either wholly or in part of its chief attribute 
and distinction? This is the question discussed in his 
' ■ Free Enquiry into the Canon," and some other essays ; 
his conclusion being that, after separating from the " true 
word" its external husk and development, every thing- 
national, local, or temporary, you are still at liberty, 
seeing that all good comes from God, to assign canonicity 
, and divinity to the imperishable residue. But then this 
7 residue was vague, undefined, and invisible ; it was the 
•' mere casual assessment of average appreciation ; so that 
the same reasoning by which Semler successfully strives 
to shew the general relativity of Scripture language, and 
its exclusive application to particular persons and times, 
must in consistency be continued and extended to the 
supposed "moral essence" itself. For this ceases to be 
authoritative as an external rule in proportion as the moral 
faculty, by which alone it is tested and determined, be- 
comes sufficiently strengthened and enlightened to claim 
, openly the prerogative which it really exercises, and dis- 
carding the hollow pretence of Biblical derivation, to initi- 
ate moral principles of its own. For, as the author him- 
self admits, if a reader already entertains the feeling which 
St. Paul wishes Philemon to cultivate towards Onesimus, 
it can little avail to consider the Epistle as canonical, 
since he possesses its lesson already, and can gain nothing 

1 Already exemplified in Bengel. 



WHAT IS CANONICITY? 99 

from perusing it. When reason and conscience have so far 
taken the matter into their own hands as to say, — that alone 
is " Word of God" in Scripture which recommends itself to 
moral approval, the record ceases to have any definitely 
binding authority, save what it accidentally retains as 
reflecting our own opinion. And the same remark applies 
to the fastidious delicacy of those who, acquiescing like 
Coleridge and others, in the great historic change from 
outer to inner criteria, have in later times left a door open 
to reactionary follies by adopting the same hesitating view. 
When, for instance, instead of directly appealing to reason 
and conscience, it is said that " a revelation has been made 
to a certain teacher in the secret chambers of his inner 
being, which he then proceeds to express, subject to all 
the conditions of human frailty ;" that while " the Bible 
is its own evidence, proved to be so by its fitness to our 
nature and needs/' 1 it is at the same time "the surest 
reflection of the inward word, the appointed conservatory, 
indispensable criterion, and continual source and support 
of true belief;" does not this self-abdicating and over- 
scrupulous refinement travesty Eve's naturally inexperi- 
enced refusal to recognize her own image in the fountain 
mirror, or the graceful modesty of the poet who attributes 
to his muse what really his own faculties originate ? In 
short, the assumed "moral essence" is the report of in- 
dividual conscience elevated to paramount authority ; free 
range is virtually given to private judgment, and the whole 
theory, including the Spiritual "Canonicity" of Bengel 
and the irresolute self-assurance of Socinianism, may be 
regarded as the first timid efforts of emancipated reason to 
bridge over the chasm between the past ignorance of con- 
tented superstition and the more perfect independence 
founded on better knowledge. 

1 Coleridge's " Confessions," p. 86. 



100 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 



The Canonicity of Genuineness. 

While Semler's criticism, founded on moral insight or 
" supernatural rationalism," threatened dissolution to the 
canon from within, another impulse towards the same 
catastrophe was unwittingly given by several well meant 
but unavailing efforts to prop the falling edifice without. 
The advocates of the " Canonicity of Genuineness," already 
alluded to as one of the haunting phantasms of an exploded 
theory, endeavoured, according- to the general method of 
" rational supernaturalism," to reinstate the " fides divina" 
through the "fides humana," by appealing to external 
testimonies of date and authorship. " Christianity," it was 
said, "remains true, if it be shewn that its records are 
genuine and trustworthy. Supposing the books to have 
been written, as they undoubtedly were, by apostles or 
eye-witnesses, the character and opportunities of the wit- 
nesses guarantee the accuracy of the facts, and from the 
proved accuracy of the facts the divine character of the 
doctrine is a necessary inference." Attention was thus 
concentrated on purely human considerations ; the claim 
was one fairly challenging refutation, in which criticism 
seemed to have at last established itself on its proper 
ground. " The question as to inspiration," said Michaelis, 
" is far less important than that of genuineness. Where 
are we to find a reliable test of inspiration ? the so-called 
1 inner witness' is as little to be relied on as tradition. I 
am unconscious of having ever felt this witness myself, 
' and have no reason to believe that they who profess to do 
so are more fortunate or nearer to the truth." Admitting 
inspiration in the Apostles, three books at least in the New 
Testament, those of Mark and Luke, are confessedly not 
apostolic ; of others, as the Apocalypse, James, and Jude, 
the authorship is doubtful. And if, as alleged to be the 
case in the Gospels, there appear to be differences and 
contradictions which no harmonising efforts can reconcile, 



THE CANONICITY OF GENUINENESS, 101 

the claim of inspiration then becomes a burthen and a 
snare, a claim not only useless but dangerous ; indeed, 
such alleged contradictions have always been the most 
formidable weapon of the infidel, as in fact they formed a 
prominent argument of the Wolfenbiittel Fragments. In 
this view we gain rather than lose by admitting fallibility 
in the Evangelists ; and thus Michaelis, in the fourth edition 
of his above-named " Introduction," found it expedient to 
advocate a compromise, and while reserving inspiration in 
the apostolical Epistles, to deny it in the historical books. 
But concession was not to be held within this arbitrary 
limit. For what could be the value of a distinction desti- 
tute of an intrinsic mark, and capriciously confined on 
ground of convenience alone to certain parts of Scrip- 
ture ? The whole theory evidently totters in the hands of 
Michaelis, who treats it reluctantly and apologetically, 
and says in reference to his first edition published in 1750, 
" We knew not then what we now know, and were com- 
paratively speaking children." 

Indeed the whole position of theology was an extremely 
critical one. The neological movement being too strong 
and universal to be met by unyielding denial, concession 
was resorted to on one side in order to enable the super- 
naturalist to defend himself more effectually on another. 
The rights of criticism were allowed, but grudgingly and 
sparingly ; and even on the precarious footing of a maimed 
and suspected authenticity an exceptional character was 
still vaguely claimed for the New Testament writings. 
In Haenlein's " Introduction " (A.D. 1794) the problem of 
inspiration, reduced by Michaelis to a minimum, disap- 
pears altogether; but so much the greater stress is laid on 
genuineness and authenticity ; and thus a spectral canoni- 
city continues to shelter a large portion of the prejudices 
which so long retarded criticism. Old preoccupations sur- 
vive in the apologetic tone assumed, and the one-sided 
overbearing manner in which the argument is conducted. 



102 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

We find it confidently asserted that in all the usually 
accepted Scriptures no indication of a later age or different 
author is to be found ; that all bear the uninistakeable 
trace of the times to which tradition ascribes them ; that 
the writers lived in the first century; that they were by 
birth and religion Jews, mostly Galilseans, all except one 
unlearned, but of diversified characters ; all if not imme- 
diate eye-witnesses, at least cotemporaries of Jesus. The 
writings, it is added, perfectly agree with these supposi- 
tions. The alleged contradictions, anomalies, etc., are either 
no contradictions at all, or else only the more confirm 
the good faith and perfect simplicity of the writers, 
since a forger would have taken good care to avoid such 
blemishes ; and to have successfully passed off any or all 
as genuine when they were not so would have required an 
incredible mixture of wisdom and virtue with stupidity 
and wickedness, as well as an absolutely impossible con- 
currence of favourable circumstances. Intentional fraud 
is not to be thought of; and the fidelity thus assumed as 
morally certain is confirmed by citing testimonies as to 
the fact, and as to the general belief of the church ac- 
cordingly. In short, the argument is partly assumed, 
partly of too vague and indefinite a character to be readily 
met. At the same time a large portion of these random 
over-confident assertions was retracted and self-refuted by 
conceding the existence of " Antilegomena ; " i.e., books 
whose apostolic origin, in spite of their ostensible position 
in the Canon, was admitted to be fairly questionable. 
What availed it to hazard the desperate pretension that 
no ancient records whatever can be compared for a mo- 
ment in regard to authenticity with the transcendent pre- 
eminence of these writings, — to claim every excellence of 
mind and heart for the holy penmen, as virtually if not 
literally inspired, when at the same time it was impossible 
in special instances to conceal the well grounded suspicion 
that many of the included documents vary in style and 



EICHH0RN. 



103 



other circumstances from those of their supposed authors, 
and either did not exist at all in the earliest Christian age, 
or only under different and imperfect forms ? But though 
in regard to several books these misgivings could not be 
entirely suppressed, still the confidence of the apologist 
in presence of a sympathising audience was not to be 
daunted, and it was pathetically urged that after all 
" Hebrews " is not so very unpaulinic ; that the 2nd Peter 
might still prove to be genuine ; and as to the 2nd and 
3rd Epistles of John, — how difficult, nay how monstrous 
to assert they are not John's ! 1 

Mc/ikorn. 

While the facts would be thus easily assumed, and 
misgiving was either silent or overborne by confident 
assertion, it was obviously impossible to reap any great 
advantage from having made the Scripture problem an 
historical one, and the opportunity of argumentative treat- 
ment remained practically valueless. A fairer and more 
manly tone of criticism began with Eichhorn. He was 
the first among professional theologians to deal with Scrip- 
ture freely on the footing of a mere literary work. He 
remarks in the preface to his " Introduction" that, whereas 
the lower criticism of the New Testament as left by Mill, 
Bengel, and others, might be regarded as nearly complete, 
the higher, which had to apply the data so provided, had 
scarcely commenced. With an impartiality unseen since 
the time of Spinoza, he united in an eminent degree the 
other qualifications of a critic ; and his " Introduction " 
opens a new era especially in this respect, that instead of 
commencing as heretofore with an ideal theory about the 
Canon anticipating the facts, and assuming a general 

1 See Haenlein's "Introduction," cited by Baur, Tubingen Journal, vol. ix.> 
pp. 540, 542. 



104 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

character interfering with the view naturally suggested 
by the phenomena, he begins inductively with special 
enquiries as to particular books, so as to get a safe basis 
for general inferences ; and while reserving a generally 
divine element in Scripture, he makes the human agencies 
so prominent that, instead of pursuing an ignis fatuus 
of supernaturalism which vanishes on approach, we are 
made to feel our real business to be with the substance 
of the writings as given, i.e., as modified by the peculiar 
individualities of the writers, and as amenable to the same 
rules as other books. Hence his solemn apostrophe to the 
Bible writers, — " However great my respect for ye, ye 
holy men, never let me fall into the superstitious idolatry 
already deprecated by yourselves, or deem it irreverent to 
submit your productions to the strictest rules of human 
criticism ! " 

Instead of the careless and impudent assertion of modern 

writers of " evidences " as to the uniform citation of the 

# 

canonical gospels from the earliest times, 1 we have here a 
consecutive account of the earliest evangelical writings be- 
yond the limits of the Canon, — the Gospel of the Hebrews, 
of Marcion, Justin's Apostolical " Memorabilia," Tatian's 
Monatessaron, the Gospels of the Apostolical Fathers ; in 
• short, of that multifarious uncanonical literature which 
Jerome alludes to as too long to recapitulate, and whose 
exact relation to the Canon forms one of the chief ob- 
jects of modern criticism. Here, too, the historical view 
of the Canon, as shewn in the real circumstances of its 
formation, is openly substituted for the dogmatical. Sem- 
ler had generally alluded to its slow uncertain growth; 2 
Eichhorn more particularly follows out the stages of its 

1 " There are numberless quotations from every part of the New Testament 
by Christian writers, from the earliest ages down to the present, all which 
substantially agree with the present test of the sacred writings." Porteus' 
Evidences, p. 29. Such are the fictions which are generally thought good 
enough even at the present day for the purposes of " religious education !" 



EICHHORN. 



105 



historical development. In his theory its germ appears 
to have been the collection formed under the two heads of 
" Apostolicon" and " Euangelion" by Marcion, and brought 
in all probability by its author to Rome about A.D. 140-150. 
Marcion was individually opposed and distrusted ; but his 
example was followed, and a similar collection, enlarged 
by the addition of other writings assumed to be apostolical, 
became during a period of comparative tranquillity 1 the 
basis of the actual New Testament. The selection was 
made on the assumption that only apostolic writings could 
be authoritative, and only those agreeing with the creed, 
or doctrinally orthodox, could be considered as apostolical; 
the testimonies and conjectures of later centuries as to 
these writings adding little to our historic certainty about 
them, except as shewing how long their claims were 
fluctuating and undecided, and how the distinction at first 
made between " Homologoumena," " Antilegomena," and 
"Notha," 2 was gradually discontinued, partly through the 
negligence of transcribers, partly in deference to church 
authority. And yet Eichhorn still retains to some ex- 
tent the tone of the advocate. Although fully aware of the 
impossibility of relying on tradition alone in proof of 
apostolical origin, he hopes by an ingenious union of evi- 
dence with tradition to confirm the judgment of the church, 
to remove doubts before entertained as to the contested 
writings, and thus to attain a higher certainty in the 
matter than was possible for antiquity itself. To the date 
of the several books no direct cotemporary attestations 
exist; but Eichhorn would make good the deficiency by en- 
deavouring to discover in each book the ideas, circumstances, 
and conditions of the age assigned to it. Now, although 
it is unquestionably part of the critic's duty to compare 
the documents investigated with the general character of 
the age, the indispensable conditions of doing so usefully 

1 A.D. 150-175. 

2 That is, the authentic, disputed, and spurious. 



106 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

and successfully are the strictest impartiality and accuracy. 
It will not do to undertake the task in the one-sided spirit 
of apology, or to rely on irrelevant and scanty data, pre- 
tending, for example, to recognise the reflection of a par- 
ticular year in general circumstances and allusions affording 
no sufficient basis for such exactness, and which might be 
as well referred to the beginning or middle of the second 
century as to the end of the first. The circumstances dwelt 
on by Eichhorn are too vague and too widely extended in 
time to be safely relied on in settling nice points of chro- 
nology ; too indefinite to warrant the inferences he wished 
to establish. 



The Abstract Criticism. — Eichhorris Urevangelium. 

The most prominent part of Eichhorn's " Introduction 
to the New Testament" is his theory of an "Urevan- 
gelium " or original gospel, in which the same process of 
grouping and comparison which had been applied by Mill 
or Bengel to the various readings in order to purify the 
text, is used in regard to the material variations of the 
narrative for the purpose of arriving at the true gospel 
original. When Scripture was first referred to historical 
criteria, it would have seemed difficult or impossible to 
follow out the suggestions of Semler, — to test its tradi- 
tional pretensions with the requisite exactness; the readiest 
expedient was to look to the nearest and simplest pheno- 
mena, to search within the writings themselves for indica- 
tions of contiguity in point of date to the supposed authors 
and eye-witnesses. The striking differences and agreements 
of the three first gospels were especially suited to be made 
the subject of such an enquiry as soon as the idea of 
inspiration was sufficiently relaxed. Under the theory of 
plenary inspiration the notion of absolute gospel agree- 
ment had been pressed to the uttermost. All difference 



ABSTRACT CRITICISM. 107 

was limited to one of quantity. Apparent variations in 
the narrative were thought to imply, not varying accounts 
of one thing, but different things ; and hence the earlier 
Harmonists were led by their refusal to recognize identity 
in difference, to sever accounts obviously parallel, and 
to group varying recitals of the same event in a con- 
tinuous series of forced and paradoxical reiteration. A 
relaxation of the theory of inspiration made it easier to 
see differences as real differences, i.e., as varying relations 
of one event ; and it then became necessary to consider 
how far the authenticity of the documents was affected by 
them. The relation of Mark to the other gospels first 
challenged attention. In regard to this matter, Grotius 
had followed the theory of a serial dependency of the 
Evangelists on each other in the order of their canonical 
succession as first broached by Augustin; while Clericus 
preferred the hypothesis of Jerome referring the verbal 
agreements to extracanonical written sources. Lardner, 
Koppe, and Michaelis combated the Augustinian theory 
in favour of Jerome's, assuming an apocryphal gospel 
prior to the canonical ones ; and then the two other 
possible alternatives came into view ; one that Mark 
forms the common basis of the " Synoptical " or three 
first gospels ; or again, as supposed by Griesbach, that 
it is an abstract or epitome deliberately made from both 
the others. The first of these views, that of the absolute 
priority of Mark, was adopted by that zealous opponent of 
rationalism, Storr ; who, though he refused to entertain 
the notion of an extracanonical gospel, at least allowed 
himself the liberty of transposing the- canonical order. 
The inference of Mark's priority was founded on his 
comparative brevity; it suited the purpose of Storr as 
a harmonist, in the idea that the shortest account must 
have been the earliest, and that amplifications were pro- 
bably accretions. Storr, however, was prevented by dog- 
matical prepossession as to harmony from fully recog- 



108 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

nising the parallelism of conflicting statements. Thus the 
blind man healed at the entrance of Jericho (Lnke xviii. 35) 
is not, he thought, to be identified with the one or the two 
blind men elsewhere said to have been healed on leaving 
it (Mark x. 46 ; Matthew xx. 29) ; the centurion's son in 
Luke (vii. 2) must not be identified with the nobleman's 
son in John (iv. 46) ; nor is Jairus' daughter the anony- 
mous maiden said to have been raised in Matthew (ix. 24), 
although in both passages there occurs a similar paren- 
thetical healing of a sick woman; for why, asks Storr, 
may not a similar intermediate event have happened under 
other circumstances? why may not two centurions have 
had sick servants at Capernaum ? and again in regard to 
a similar difficulty on another occasion, why may not the 
disciples have at one time mended their nets, at another 
contented themselves with washing them ? The cessation 
of dogmatical prepossession put a stop to forced attempts to 
harmonize, and Griesbach, admitting that the Evangelists 
supply no materials of sufficient certainty for the purpose of 
a harmony, substituted for it the " Synoptical " view, ac- 
cording to which the three first gospels differ qualitatively 
as well as quantitatively. And then the question recurred, 
how can the same divine truth be contained in narratives 
apparently so different ; and if one be more authentic than 
the others, by what criterium are we to distinguish the 
derivative from the original ? The first effect of enquiry 
was to set aside the anomalous fourth gospel, and to renew 
the problem as to the others. In this view, Storr 's assign- 
ment of priority and Griesbach's of posteriority 1 to Mark, 
may be regarded as the earliest of a long series of conjec- 
tural attempts in every conceivable direction to unveil by 
ingenious but fanciful guesswork the secret of the literary 
origin of the gospels ; and it is observable how, in this as 
in other cases, the first efforts of freedom were baffled by 

1 Commentatio, qua Marci Evangelium totum e Matthsei et Lucae commen- 
tariis decerptum esse monstratur. 1789. 



ABSTRACT CRITICISM. 109 

being arbitrary and ill directed. Lessing first placed 
historical criticism on a really rational footing in the tract 
entitled " New hypothesis of the Evangelists considered as 
human writers," bearing date 1778, and printed among his 
literary remains. 1 His view is a generally faithful tran- 
script of historical data, referring the varieties of Christian 
literature to the grand distinction of Jew and Gentile 
Christianity, and making both the canonical and unca- 
nonical gospels spring from an original gospel represented 
by that called "of the Hebrews" or " of the Nazarenes," 
and ultimately of Matthew, — John's gospel being only a 
freer version of the same original. The treatise Occasioned 
much discussion, tending to displace the formerly accredited 
notion of an early use of the canonical gospels, for which, 
indeed, there is so little historical foundation. Corrodi 
asserted the identity of the " gospel of the Hebrews" 
with the Hebrew original of Matthew, again recognizing 
it in the " Memorabilia " of Justin; and conjectured the 
origin of " Luke" to be nothing more than Marcion's gos- 
pel interpolated Judaistically, the basis of the whole being 
a gospel of the uncircumcision. 

But the most notable of the many hypotheses arising out 
of the discussion was Eichhorn's theory of the " Urevan- 
gelium," taken up subsequently by Herbert Marsh. Eich- 
horn tried to approach the true literary essence by a mode 
somewhat similar to Semler or Spinoza's way of elimi- 
nating the moral essence, or Bengel's in regard to the 
religious ; the aim, as in other instances, was to get unity 
out of multiplicity, the original from assumed accretions ; 
the result was also similar ; for by referring the attribute 
of absolute authenticity to an unknown ideal, it had the 
beneficial effect of bringing down the actual Gospels from 
the transcendental sphere in which they had hitherto soared 
far above the reach of historical enquiry. Eichhorn threw 
back the presumed original beyond the various apocry- 

1 See " "Works," Lachmann's edition, vol. xi., pt. 2, p. 121. 



110 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

phal as well as canonical gospels ; the latter, selected by 
the church out of a multitude of others as the best, and 
formed independently of one another out of the supposed 
original, came into use, he thought, only towards the close 
of the second century. 

But this kind of criticism, though superior to mere 
philological or text criticism, as entering more deeply 
into the secret of the literary composition, was still 
far from being, what Eichhorn supposes it to be, the 
highest ; and Baur gives the name of " abstract," as op- 
posed to " dogmatical " criticism on one side and to 
" historical" or true criticism on the other, to the com- 
paratively free theology which, from Eichhorn down to 
Strauss, admitted the exercise of the rights of reason on 
the subject, but reasoned fancifully and superficially. 
Selecting certain passages which are the same, or nearly 
so, in all three gospels, Eichhorn assumed these as ele- 
ments and as indisputable evidence of the supposed original 
document ; for it was impossible, he thought, to explain 
such exact conformity in any other way ; it is not ac- 
counted for by supposing all three writers to have been 
eye-witnesses, or alike recipients of the same oral tradition ; 
in either of these cases their reports would have carried 
marks of individuality in thought and language, and would 
not have so exactly corresponded. Minute agreement 
indicates a written original ; the evangelists must have 
either copied each other, or a common written source; the 
first supposition is excluded by the differences ; we must 
therefore embrace the second. So far the correspondences 
were explained, but not the differences. To account for 
the latter, Eichhorn had recourse to a multitude of hypo- 
thetical transcribers and translators from the Aramaic 
original, who in writing modified or enlarged what was 
before them by aid of their own recollections or acquired 
information. The same process of varying translation and 
successive modification had to be repeated in regard to the 



ABSTRACT CRITICISM. Ill 

agreements and differences of each two gospels separately ; 
and hence a scheme of indescribable confusion and com- 
plexity whose general aim was to exclude the already 
proscribed notion of direct copying from each other. 

Abstract Criticism Continued. — Herder, Gieseler, Hug, 
Schleiermacher. 

Eichhorn's hypothesis, making the evangelists into mere 
copyists, and striving to construct an imaginary original by 
anatomically dissecting the existing records, was obviously 
unsatisfactory ; and being complicated as well as fanci- 
ful, only stimulated ingenuity to propose other schemes. 
Several such theories were influenced or suggested by the 
sagacious conjectures of Wolf, 1 (by no means less valuable 
because happening to be unpopular in England), as to the 
origin of the Homeric poems. Two years after the publica- 
tion of the " Prolegomena," Herder proposed, in opposition 
to Eichhorn's mechanical view, that the Evangelists, instead 
of servile copyists, should be considered as the independent 
and original organs of Christian sentiment, the " Rhap- 
sodes" of apostolic or Messianic tradition. This theory 
was afterwards developed by Gieseler, 2 who fairly argued 
that Eichhorn's hypothesis deduced but a very imperfect 
result from fanciful data ; that, as before suggested, it 

1 Fred. Aug. Wolf (born 1759, died 1824), exercised through his "Pro- 
legomena," called by Wlnckelmann " the first fruits of a new sera," a most 
important influence in promoting historical criticism and the genial appreciation 
of antiquity. See Dr. "William Herbst — " Das classische Alterthum in der 
Gegenwart," pp. 18, 21, etc. Niebuhr says in relation to "Wolf in the Philo- 
logical Museum, vol. i. p. 176 : " May I take this opportunity of speaking 
out on a point already hinted in my history ? Homer himself was no more a 
historical person than any other hero, the eponymus of a house. Every story 
bringing down his name to the level of an ordinary mortal is of the same 
stamp with the one concerning Romulus, which I have tried to explode. The 
only objection to these wonderful investigations of "Wolf, in which the higher 
criticism seems to have reached its perfection, is the over timidity with which 
the author still allows to Homer a human personality in regard to parts of 
the Iliad." Niebuhr goes on to say that "Wolf well deserves to be called the 
hero eponymus of German philology. 

2 Historischer Versuch iiber die Enstehung der Evangelien, Leipzig, 1818. 



112 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

accounted for agreements, but wrestled vainly with the 
differences. Both, he thought, might be better and more 
naturally explained from data historically authenticated; 
namely, the well-known fact that, for a long time the 
Gospel was not written but preached ; written memoranda 
not being resorted to until circumstances shewed their 
necessity. Gieseler's argument generally tended to shew 
that if the oral hypothesis explained the agreements in the 
gospels as well as the assumed written original, and the 
differences better, it was plainly superfluous and unphilo- 
sophical to resort to what was historically unattested and 
conjectural merely. The fact, however, was that tradition, 
though historically proved to have been a main source of 
evangelical composition, accounted for differences, but could 
not so well be made to explain the very peculiar coin- 
cidences. 

Thus conjecture succeeded conjecture without any decided 
result save that of increasing an already prevalent distrust 
as to the absolute originality and reliability of the synopti- 
cal gospels. Under these circumstances the simple remon- 
strances of the Catholic theologian Hug, 1 though establishing 
nothing critically, and only reiterating in another form the 
dogmatical decisions of the council of Trent, operated never- 
theless as a wholesome check to arbitrary theorising ; and 
the indolence of conventionalism re-echoed the very natural 
expostulation — " why this elaborate effort to explain what 
is already sufficiently explained by acquiescing in the ordi- 
nary belief? Why harp on the obscure testimony of Papias 
about a Hebrew Matthew, when we know that Matthew, 
if he wished to be read, must necessarily have written in 
Greek ; especially as made aware by the prediction of his 
Master that in a few months or years the country would 
cease to be Hebrew ? "Why may not the Evangelists have 
copied each other ? You say because they contradict each 
other. But look at Livy and Polybius! These writers 

1 A.D. 1808. 



ABSTRACT CRITICISM. 



113 



seldom agree, nay, are often in contradiction ; yet Livy 
had read Polybius, and refers to him ; so that it is quite 
possible for a writer to have read another, and yet to 
adhere to his own opinion, and to prefer stating the matter 
in his own way." Thus a fourth tentative theory was super- 
added to those already mentioned in the shape of a qualified 
return to the regular order of gospel sequence, one evange- 
list being supposed to have followed or used the other, 
according to Augustin's view. But this in its turn gave 
rise to other more or less vague surmises as to the origin 
of changes, additions, omissions, etc. Gieseler's theory, 
while sufficiently explaining the differences, gave no ade- 
quate account of the many marked instances of exact and 
special correspondence ; a correspondence often limited to 
two of the gospels, indicating with several other circum- 
stances that the tradition was already too broken and 
multifarious to account for such agreement ; and besides, 
how reconcile the hypothesis generally with the distinct 
reference to written documents in the proemium of Luke ? 
Hereupon Schleiermacher began to question the conclusive- 
ness of Eichhorn's alternative, i.e. that the Evangelists 
must have copied each other or a single common source. 
Why not suppose several common as well as private 
sources? If, in the course of the " Urevangelium " argu- 
ment, you are obliged at last to have recourse to several 
written sources, why not admit this at first ; since the 
supposition is sufficiently warranted by the obvious want 
of manifold written memoranda during the interval be- 
tween the first gospel preaching and the public recognition 
of the canonical gospels. A necessity for written docu- 
ments must have arisen when, after the first Christian 
age, many individuals personally unacquainted with Jesus, 
wished for accurate information about him. The desire 
could only be partially gratified in public discourses and 
assemblies ; for fuller accounts private communication was 
resorted to, and writing was soon found to be very con- 

8 



114 



SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 



venient, either as a substitute for oral explanations, or to 
instruct persons at a distance, who in turn became sources 
of information to others. Hence the theory of intermediate 
" Sw^o-et?," 1 superadded by Schleiermacher to Gieseler's 
hypothesis of tradition. From narratives of single events 
and discourses larger collections were gradually formed, 
long before the authority of any one gospel was publicly 
recognized. Schleiermacher here argues that in order to 
ascertain the origin of our present gospels, we ought first 
to study each separately ; to discover out of what materials 
and with what view or rule of arrangement the different 
events were bound together ; afterwards, after completing 
this preliminary analysis, to consider the relations of all 
three together ; to see whether the general results fit with 
the particular, or whether to understand the general re- 
lation some other hypothesis is still wanting. The latter 
task was not attempted by Schleiermacher ; the former 
was the object of his Essay on Luke ; but the result was 
not satisfactory ; it amounted only to a mechanical divi- 
sion of the gospel into supposed fragmentary elements, 
an operation in itself ingenious, but leading to no broad 
philosophic inference. 

Shortcomings of " Abstract " Criticism. 

When criticism passed from its first elementary stage 
in the hands of Semler and Eichhorn to those of Schleier- 
macher, its range and influence over later theology became 
immensely extended. The extension was owing to the con- 
summate skill with which, while apparently conceding all the 
essential claims of theology, Schleiermacher in reality trans- 
formed it into a system agreeing generally with average 
intelligence, and speaking to a great extent the sense, if 
not the language of philosophy. His treatment of Scrip- 

1 " Declarations" or provisional narratives. See Luke i. 1. 



SHORTCOMINGS OF " ABSTRACT' ' CRITICISM. 115 

ture stood far aloof from limiting mechanical notions of 
canonicity and inspiration. In his hands inspiration became 
something quite general and unimportant ; indeed, scarcely 
more than mere authenticity ; not a quality arbitrarily de- 
termining the worth of a given writing by its position in 
a certain class or catalogue, but rather itself a matter to 
be proved, and depending on the purity and originality 
of the witness borne in each special case to the redeeming 
principle primarily revealed to the " Christian conscious- 
ness." 1 Thus the ''Christian consciousness" became 
amenable to individual consciousness ; and Schleiermacher 
reverted from his theoretical profession of " absolute depen- 
dency" to the practical exercise of freedom. His contempt 
for the Old Testament is well known ; and the liberality of 
his " consciousness," however professedly Christian, em- 
boldened him to deal summarily with many portions of 
the New, including Ephesians with the Apocalypse and 
other books ranked among the " Antilegomena. " His 
remarks on the Epistle to Timothy first drew attention to 
the apocryphal character of the pastoral letters ; the Essay 
on Luke (1817) was an important contribution to the 
discovery of the true principle of the composition of the 
gospels; the paper on the testimony of Papias 2 tended in 
the same direction ; and it may be said generally that 
these three essays, though in many particulars inexact 
and incomplete, led the way to the certain establishment 
of three valuable inferences, — first, that pseudonymous 
writings exist in the New Testament ; secondly, that the 
synoptical gospels were formed by a gradual aggregation 
of pre-existent materials ; thirdly, that the oldest and 

1 Schleiermacher sides neither with the theory of original perfection, nor 
simply and unreservedly with that of prospective perfectibility ; he supposes a 
principle of perfection to have been miraculously inserted midway in the career 
of humanity, which later human effort is to develope and effectuate. This is 
evidently a concession to conventional supernaturalism entirely irreconcileable 
with his general view as to miracles. 

* Theol. Works, 2nd vol. 



116 SPECIAL ANTECEDE1STS. 

most authentic part of these materials are the didactic 
" sayings " or doctrinal core, around which the rest of the 
narrative is grouped. The very inconsequence of Schleier- 
macher, his hesitation between new things and old, his 
unwillingness to quit the central notions of Christian 
belief, combined with the diplomatic dexterity with which 
he contrived to conceal the ideas of modern philosophy 
under the vesture of ancient symbolism, temporarily drew 
within his influence a whole generation of theologians, 
many of whom were far more strictly orthodox than 
himself; and among his followers may be reckoned many 
of extreme liberal as well as of orthodox views; even 
Strauss, as having attended his critical lectures on the 
life of Jesus, delivered in 1831 in Berlin, may be regarded 
as his debtor. Of the others ranking as his disciples some 
leaned to moderation and hesitation, as Lucke, Ullman, 
Olshausen, Neander; others realised more effectually the 
inheritance of learned independence, such as Credner, 
Gieseler, Hase, Bleek, Thilo, De Wette. And while the 
sentimental and subjective tendencies of Schleiermacher 
degenerated in Neander into a subserviency to religious 
feeling, which, under the nickname of "pectoralismus" 
or " pectoral theology," obscured the clear issues of 
learning, and lowered the tone of criticism to that of 
pious platitude, the more rationalising followers of the 
master, — Gieseler, Liicke, and especially De Wette, carried 
on with vigour and general impartiality the critical studies 
commenced by Eichhorn, though still not without certain 
hesitations and sentimental leanings in favour of customary 
symbolism. And indeed the whole of this theology, based 
in the sense of Schleiermacher on consciousness, assumed a 
consciousness more or less warped by the education of 
tradition ; so that there was throughout a latent tendency 
to reaction, which, like the grain of millet unobserved by 
the transformed genius in the Arabian story, threatened 
to reverse at any moment the attitude of the parties, and 



SHORTCOMINGS OF 



117 



to reinstate the Genie of unreason in the very crisis of the 
victory of its opposite. 

The imperfect criticism denominated "abstract" by Baur 
added considerably in the hands of Schleiermacher and 
others to the mass of materials and surmises awaiting a 
final adjudication ; its immediate issue was, however, little 
more than busy guesswork, striving to exhaust the range 
of possibility, and covering the whole field with a flimsy 
network of hypothesis. Freedom naturally engendered 
varieties of opinion, and indefinite conjectural activity was 
the order of the day during the period under consideration. 
Here we find Bertholdt confounding the Old Testament 
with the New, and carelessly closing with any random as- 
sumption, such as Aramaic originals of the Pauline Epistles, 
as well as a similar Aramaic original of the gospels, which, 
as he suggests, may very 'probably have been drawn up by 
the general apostolic body in Jerusalem ; then there is 
Schott, never thoroughly consistent, save in repudiating 
unapostolical elements in the Canon ; Schleiermacher, 
mingling free enquiry with pious prepossession, and in- 
sisting on the generally providential origin of the Canon, 
yet not in its character of a specific work, too many im- 
pure and human elements 1 being obviously concerned in 
its composition ; De Wette, too, similarly balanced be- 
tween liberality and orthodoxy, and dodging the inevitable 
alternative, taking refuge when pressed on the sceptical 
side with the canonical authority which he had before 
treated as submissively awaiting the decision of criticism. 
Freedom, in short, was incomplete ; everywhere it seemed 
clogged with hesitation and irresolution. Eichhorn's 
theory, making the three synoptical gospels derivative 
compositions, had done much to elucidate their origin and 
to place them in a new light; but its author, after re- 

1 Engendered by prejudice, failing memory, or love of the marvellous. But 
then Schleiermacher was indemnified for all these deficiencies in the synoptics 
by his implicit trust in the fourth gospel. 



118 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

monstrating against reliance on tradition, proceeded to 
insist that these writings, in spite of the complicated 
circumstances of their origin, are nevertheless virtually 
the works of the apostolic authors to whom tradition 
ascribes them; that though Matthew's Gospel did not re- 
ceive from the apostle its present extended shape, still it 
is rightly so named because founded on a gospel altered 
from the "original" gospel by Matthew. But how be- 
lieve that apostolic eye-witnesses would have assumed so 
secondary a part as that of copying or modifying a set 
document; or that all the supposed intermediate changes 
and alterations could have occurred in the short time 
allowed by the hypothesis? And again, how, supposing 
the gospels in their present form to be really apostolical, 
are we to explain what became of them during the long 
interval preceding their apparent publication, or how, for 
more than a century, documents so important present a 
mere literary blank? In short, Eichhorn's hasty retreat 
to tradition savours more of prejudiced advocacy than 
judicial impartiality ; and his apologetic plea is supported 
by the customary trivialities. Everywhere during this 
period we find perplexity and inconsequence ; irresolute 
advance and busy insincerity ; criticism painfully striving 
to appear orthodox, and orthodoxy unwittingly pioneer- 
ing the path of criticism ; each retracting with one hand 
concessions made with the other, and arriving at last at 
absolute arrest and self-refutation. Of this Credner's treat- 
ment of several New Testament books may be cited as an 
example. Here vacillation reaches its acme in absolute 
self-contradiction. Credner says that the fourth gospel is 
the only authentic one, the others having little comparative 
pretensions to reliance, and indeed containing much that is 
purely mythical. On the other hand, he tells us that the 
synoptics, though interpolated and corrupted, are based 
on original narratives of Matthew and Mark ; while John 
must be admitted to have suppressed many miracles from 



SHORTCOMINGS OF "ABSTRACT" CRITICISM. 119 

motives of policy, — to have winked during' his lifetime at 
the oriental passover observance which he knew all the { 
while to be a mistake, and to have modified his narrative 
to suit his individual idea of Christ and his knowledge of 
Alexandrian philosophy ! Out of the three pastoral epistles 
Credner contrives to carve three genuine and two spurious 
ones; so that the question as to genuineness is. partly 
affirmed and partly denied; the letters are genuine and 
not genuine, and their impugners and defenders are both 
in the right ! De Wette in the first edition of his " Ein- 
leitung," 1826, boldly took the side of free enquiry, arguing 
that true Christianity could never really suffer from the < 
honest pursuit of truth. He thought himself far in ad- 
vance of the far-fetched shifts of the " Urevangelium" 
when he proposed to substitute recollection in place of 
writing* in order to account for the influence exerted by 
the several Evangelists over each other ; but finding in 
the interval between his first and fifth editions that recol- 
lection was too precarious an expedient to account for the 
close verbal as well as material agreements in the gospels, 
he recurred to the idea of a direct use by one writer of 
the others. Here, however, he was ag^iin confronted by 
the difficulty which the recollection theory was devised to 
avoid, namely, the differences ; and was thus driven back 
to the notion of intermediary links and collateral sources 
of information. He was at first inclined to admit that 
something must be allowed for free invention and literary 
individuality ; but in the meantime the historical or " ten- 
dency theory" of the Tubingen School made its appear- 
ance ; and De Wette, though himself doubting the genuine- 
ness of Matthew, denying Mark's connection with Peter, 
and designating the author of " Luke" as a " Paulinist," 
drew back in dismay from the precipice before him, cen- 
suring the proposed explanation from literary or party 
purpose as " endangering the credibility of the gospel 
history." 



120 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

Conjectures as to the Fourth Gospel. 

The concentration of attention on the three first gospels 
during these enquiries naturally left the fourth still en- 
veloped in its old nimbus of supernaturalisin. The few 
attempts made to explain its origin were vague and in- 
effectual. It was universally allowed to be a genuine 
apostolic work. Lessing, in the treatise already cited, 
revived the theory of Clemens Alexandrinus, making it 
the spiritual or " pneumatic" as opposed to the fleshly 
gospel. Eichhorn treated it in a similar way, as composed 
indeed from the same fundamental document, but on a 
different plan from the others. The " Urevangelium," 
said Eichhorn, might very possibly be found insufficient 
for the requirements of Greek culture; John therefore 
wrote a fourth gospel ; and though not intending thereby 
to supplant the others, he corrected their inaccuracies, and 
placed many things in a clearer and fuller light. In 1820, 
Bretschneider, in his " Probabilia," 1 for the first time gave 
utterance to doubts as to the origin and genuineness of the 
fourth gospel ; and that not only as implying its involun- 
tary corruption through oral transmission, but more or less 
of intentional fraud in the author. But these doubts were 
not prosecuted at the time ; they remained only another 
specimen of the prevalent unfruitful guesswork, and to 
appease the obloquy they provoked were afterwards with- 
drawn by the author himself. Subsequently Strauss re- 
tracted, on very scanty grounds, a similar suspicion. And 
yet in no direction could enquiry have been more usefully 
directed than in this ; for the peculiar discrepancies of this 
gospel are eminently suggestive, exhibiting those seeming 
anomalies which are most calculated to tempt and to 
reward research. But Bretschneider's theory appeared at 

1 "Probabilia de Evang. et Epist. Joannis indole et origine," 1820. 
Earlier hints in the same direction are however cited by Hilgenfeld, " Der 
Kanon" p. 136. 



CONJECTURES AS TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 121 

a very unfavourable moment. It was broached during the 
crisis of reaction from rationalistic or argumentative re- 
ligion to sentimental; when the theological advocates of 
feeling happened to have adopted the fourth gospel as the 
unimpeachable apostolic witness, the surest guide in 
history as well as doctrine. Schleiermacher stepped 
lightly over the objections of Bretschn eider ; it was well, 
he said, that the question had been mooted, in order to 
be finally set at rest. Meantime implicit deference for the 
fourth gospel acted as a kind of moral support in applying 
free criticism to other writings ; the lingering partialities 
of orthodoxy rallied round this last stay, since, as once 
said by Episcopius, religion might be considered safe so 
long as a single Scripture book was retained as indis- 
putably genuine, and through this important reservation 
a decent respectability in the eyes of the world might yet 
be maintained. Schleiermacher accepted De Wette's rule 
as to the incompatibility of the apocalypse and the gospel ; 
but whereas De Wette doubted which of the two was 
apostolical, Schleiermacher had no such misgiving. He 
assumed that one of the gospels at least must be aposto- 
lical, and considered that one to be unquestionably John's. 
" It was proved to be so by its biographical character and 
connected unity. It recounts dialogues and circumstances 
which only an eye-witness could possibly have known ; 
it must be older than the synoptics in their present con- 
dition, and therefore cannot be based on them. Even the 
supplementary twenty-first chapter, although indisputably 
of later date than the rest, must be assumed to be the 
apostle's ; and generally the narrative has that stamp of 
immediate authority before which suspicion vanishes ; the 
writer must have told the truth ; the highest evidence is 
the ' Total-eindruck des Ganzen,' — the general impression 
of the ivhole" Credner spoke in a similar strain : " Even 
were we destitute of testimony as to the author, we should 
have been led" he says, "by the force of internal evidence, 



122 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

the vigour and accuracy of the statements, the high 
wrought idealism and spiritualism, etc., etc., to the in- 
ference that the author of such a work can be no other 
than a Palestinian, an apostle, an eye-witness, in short, 
that very beloved disciple whom Jesus attached to his 
person by all the magical fascinations of his teaching!" 
On such grounds it was thought fair to conclude that in 
case of narrative variation the fourth gospel must be 
inevitably in the right, the synoptics always in the wrong; 
and Eichhorn's hypothesis of free invention as to the 
speeches was contemptuously rejected, as suggesting too 
near a parallel to the Greek and Eoman historians. He 
who should have invented these, said Schleiermacher, 
would have invented more, and have done it more harmo- 
niously and consistently. 

De Wette's irresoluteness was no where more marked 
than in his treatment of the fourth gospel. In the first 
edition of his "Einleitung" the reasons for and against were 
carefully balanced. Vivid description, spiritual doctrine, 
adaptation to Greek ideas, agree, he thought, with the 
circumstances of John ; still it seems odd that a mere 
Galilsean fisherman should have become so deeply versed 
in Greek philosophy ; so that we ought to look narrowly 
to historical or geographical anomalies, singularities in 
the discourses, especially the important discrepancies in 
regard to the passover and last supper. In the interval 
between his first and last editions the gospel had become 
the subject of a searching criticism in the Tubingen 
Journal, which De Wette could not entirely overlook ; but 
though its tendency was against the genuineness, it seemed 
to influence this hitherto irresolute theologian to pronounce 
more decidedly in its favour. To plain indications of un- 
historical character he now more resolutely opposes in- 
stinctively apprehended evidences of clearness, originality, 
divinity, etc.; smooths over obvious difficulties; expatiates 
on the odium of making the apostolic eye-witness an 



STRAUSS AND THE MYTHICAL INTERPRETATION. 123 

impostor; the improbability that the church would have 
accepted as genuine an account differing* so widely and 
obviously from the other gospels unless for very cogent 
and sufficient reasons ; thus seeking refuge in that very 
tradition which he had before treated as untrustworthy, 
and that in regard to a book less supported by traditional 
evidence than almost any other in the Canon ! True, he 
says, in many points of historical detail opportunities may 
be found for cavil; but John wrote the gospel in his old 
age under altered circumstances, when his recollections 
had become faint, and indeed a minute pragmatical accu- 
racy was inconsistent with the enlarged character of his 
soul ! So that instead of the former plea of originality 
and clearness, we are now referred to remoteness and faint- 
ness ; and why, asks De Wette, should not an apostle who 
was so intimately acquainted with his master's thoughts be 
allowed a " certain latitude" in expressions, which, though 
perhaps not actually uttered by Jesus, were in perfect har- 
mony with the spirit of his teaching? Why seek an 
author in some unknown person, whose great endowments 
must have been really inconsistent with such an incognito, 
and after all with no result but to confound this " great 
unknown " with the nameless apocryphal writers of the 
second century ? It is evident from this style of argu- 
ment that De Wette was wanting from the first in the 
strict impartiality of the true critic; and that he held 
even the balance of belief and doubt only so long as belief 
appeared to be in no real jeopardy. 



Strauss and the Mythical Interpretation. 

In this equivocal condition of theology, this helpless 
guesswork and capricious alternation of concession and re- 
tractation, a powerful shock was evidently needed to startle 
men's minds out of helpless bewilderment, to test the 



124 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

moral temper of their thoughts, and to force them to the 
inevitable alternative of uncompromising honesty or un- 
limited delusion. An Iris or Atropos was wanted to end 
./ the long agony, to sever the last hair of expiring super- 
' stition. It was by performing this harsh but inevitable 
operation that Strauss opened a new epoch in Biblical 
study. Seeing the uselessness of multiplying vague con- 
jectures about the form, priority, or other external circum- 
stances of the New Testament writings, he made it his 
business to look back to the internal phenomena, freely 
applying philosophical data in considering their essential 
character and contents. His object was to draw useful 
inferences from those very differences or incongruities of 
statement which others were so anxious to hide; — not to 
decypher popular prejudice out of a portion of the writings, 
but to put an instructive interpretation on the whole. This 
was an important part of the general problem of modern 
science, the last and hardest labour of scientific history. 
It has been said 1 that one chief employment of a specula- 
tive age is to bring to light and exhibit in their true con- 
nection the confused trains of thought which occupied men's 
minds in unenlightened times, to translate them into in- 
telligible language, — to trace the origin, significance, and 
fluctuations of ancient symbolism. And if the task of 
ancient culture may be generally described as summed up 
in that of teaching the great lesson of self-knowledge and 
self-consciousness, 2 of raising the mind by means of art 
and ideal speculation out of sensual slavery and apathetic 
instinct to that absolute freedom and stoical self-reliance of 
which Christianity, which abandoned the world as Satanic, 
was an eminent though exaggerated specimen, — the task 
of modern science and philosophy is to recover the empire 
of the world before recklessly abdicated, to restore to 

1 Stewart's Philosophy of the Mind, chap. ii. p. 67. 
2 "rvo>0i o-eawToj/."— This view is developed at length by Kuno Fischer in 
the 1st vol. of his History of Modern Philosophy. 



STRAUSS AND THE MYTHICAL INTERPRETATION. 125 

abstract intellectual freedom its concrete and real value, 1 
to subject to the dominion of the mind 2 as exemplifying 
intelligible order or law all the phenomena of thought as 
well as the phenomena of nature. For the monuments of 
thought are part of the phenomena of nature, and it had 
already been in principle conceded by Lessing, as well as 
by Spinoza, and even by Schleiermacher, that the monu- 
ments of Hebrew thought were to be treated on the same 
footing as other records. 

The impartiality necessary for thus dealing with literary 
documents was of course attained much earlier in regard to 
heathen literature than Christian. It needed no very pro- 
found reflection to see that the stories of the heathen gods, 
so absurd or so revolting when taken literally, must once 
have had a deeper meaning ; and hence in ancient as well as 
modern times very various attempts to allegorise or explain 
them. These attempts took their character from the various 
concurrent forms of philosophical opinion ; Theagenes and 
Metrodorus gave them a physical, Antisthenes a moral, 
Ephorus and Euhemerus an historical or pragmatical sig- 
nificance. The Christian Fathers were led by theological 
prejudice to attribute the Greek mythology to a Hebrew 
origin, sometimes treating the gods euhemeristically as men, 
sometimes in a more bitter spirit of theological hostility as 
devils. Instances occur in the gnomic poetry of the middle 
ages of attempts to moralise the mythi, 3 and after the re- 
vival of learning all the above schemes of interpretation 
were reproduced with more or less of elaboration and con- 
sistency. Boccacio collected the scattered material ; JNatalis 
Comes and Bacon endeavoured to extract the essential 
meaning from what they held to be allegorical envelop- 
ments of ancient wisdom ; and while the deists dismissed 

1 Bacon's " Imperium hominis." 

2 Cogito = sum — in other words, the identity of heing and thought. 

3 See a paper by Stuhr on the Treatment of Mythi since the middle ages. 
Zeitschrift fur speculative Theologie, vol. iii., part i. p. 88; also Gervinus — 
History of German Poetry, vol. i. p. 430. 



126 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

the subject as comparatively senseless and unmeaning, 
others pursued the task of explanation in various direc- 
tions, in particular adding to the moral or pragmatical 
theories of exegesis a Biblical method, which (the revived 
taste for classical literature not allowing the gods to be 
stigmatised as daemons) conferred on them a morganatic 
affinity with revelation as transfigured personages of He- 
brew history. So that while one party, including Jacob 
Bryant, Huet, Bochart, Faber, etc., etc., claimed mytho- 
logy as a subordinate department of their own superstition, 
the deists wholly excluded it from the sphere of profitable 
enquiry. Toland declares heathenism to be an artifice of 
priests foisted on human credulity, and in his " Letters to 
Serena" avows himself a Euhemerist. Lord Herbert of 
Cherbury, however, although considering all additions to 
his fundamental five articles as rather noxious than other- 
wise, admits that a system which prevailed so widely and 
so long would not have been " sine aliquibus rationum mo- 
mentis." In these views, wherever the utility of explanation 
was allowed, the idea of deliberate allegory predominated, 
and the office of the interpreter became that of stripping 
off the figurative form or husk, and then presenting the 
supposed inner meaning in its native shape of physical, 
ethical, or political truth. Lord Bacon, for instance, 
instead of applying in this case the true principles of 
his philosophy in faithfully interpreting the essence or 
"nature" before him, seeks for some originally proposed 
meaning, which is often a mere " anticipatio mentis" 
or fancy of his own. He admits that poetry and fable 
were necessary and inevitable forms of the early convey- 
ance of knowledge ; but he means a necessity caused by 
the mere incapacity of the recipient, and thus fails to ap- 
preciate the spontaneous and unconscious character of the 
process by which mythus, like language, naturally grew. 
In short, he disposes of the bulk of the fable with the 
arbitrary superficiality usual among the deists; and as- 



STRAUSS AND THE MYTHICAL INTERPRETATION. 127 

sumes the same licence in decyphering mythi which he 
supposes the poets to have exercised in creating them. 
The first to take a really scientific view of mythi as spon- 
taneous phenomena was Vico, who in his " Scienza Nuova" 
(i.e. the still new science of humanity), shewed how the 
first acts and utterances of social as of individual man are 
unpremeditated and unconscious, resulting from poetic in- 
stinct, in which imagination is all powerful, and abstract 
reflection unknown. The fact that man, when arrested by 
ignorance, necessarily makes himself, his own ideas and 
emotions, the measure of all around him, supplies the key 
to the origin of mythus and to its interpretation ; and Vico 
never tires of quoting the words of Tacitus — " fingunt 
simul creduntque," as aptly expressing that ready self-aban- 
donment to first impressions which is its essence. Herder, too, 
treated the growth of religion and symbolism as spon- 
taneous ; but while Vico looked, perhaps too exclusively, 
to internal laws of thought, Herder referred with a bias 
equally one-sided to influences of external nature. Both 
wrote too deductively and with inadequate knowledge. 
The problem of philosophical history was propounded, but 
as yet inadequately solved ; and the progress hitherto made 
in its solution is chiefly due to the philologers and philo- 
sophers of Germany, commencing more especially with 
Leibnitz. Bacon, Descartes, and Pascal, animated by the 
sanguine feeling engendered by the great discoveries of 
preceding centuries, had learned to view the human race as 
a great individual whose destiny is progress, whose youth is 
what is commonly called the world's antiquity, and whose 
maturity, enriched with the experience of ages, is reserved for 
the present and the future. Spinoza's theory was rather an 
assertion of the rights and salutary effects of philosophy than 
a philosophy in itself ; it was a renunciation of the individual, 
the dream of ascetical theosophy, in which the idea of 
progressive movement was temporarily suppressed ; yet 
it enabled its author to survey antiquity for the first 



128 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

time with an unprejudiced eye, to see things in their 
general aspects, and so far to lay the foundations of 
scientific history. Leibnitz restored to individual man his 
consequence and dignity as a progressive being, and by a 
system founded on the ideas of continuity and harmonious 
development, gave new zest and impulse to historical study ; 
a study especially promoted by the comprehensive and con- 
ciliatory spirit which, looking not to individual reason, but 
to universal, disposed him to recognise a portion of truth 
in all opinions and systems. It was in this liberal feeling 
that Winckelman subsequently applied himself to art, 
Herder to history, and Lessing to both. Dissatisfied alike 
with traditional superstitions and with the rude denials of 
deism, these men opened out new paths in the intelligent 
reconstruction of antiquity. Classical antiquity had been 
especially offensive and puzzling to the limited deistic 
understanding, which lacked the adequate perception of 
beauty, of art, and of religion; which could not in the 
wide survey of antiquity forget its own narrow associa- 
tions, or see the objects under examination in a truly his- 
torical light. The accurate comprehension of the mythical 
was impeded by the same cause which originated it ; i.e. 
the unconsciously confounding subjective and objective, — 
opinion and fact. The mind required greater knowledge 
both of itself and of its object ; before it could properly 
estimate the claims of ancient thought it was necessary 
that, through a discipline of self-examination, it should 
learn the true limits of its own ; it was an essential pre- 
liminary that the measurer should be himself measured, 
and enabled by the great psychologist Kant to scan more 
accurately his own operations and . powers. And to this 
important requisite of a higher philosophy was added about 
the same time the equally indispensable element of a new 
spiritual life. The appreciation of ancient art and religion 
underwent an entire change through the memorable revo- 
lution called Eomanticism, which forms a distinguishing 



STRAUSS AND THE MYTHICAL INTERPRETATION. 129 

limit between the first stages of deistic or dogmatic 
rationalism (Aufklarung) and the richer illumination of 
later times. Once before, the European mind of the middle 
age was happily rescued from an impending lethargy of 
mere pedantic imitation by the outburst of ideal poetry 
and enthusiasm which occurred in chivalry/ and which 
perhaps more than anything else insured the vigorous 
originality of modern civilisation. A similar revival of 
natural and youthful sentiment took place at the close of 
the eighteenth century among the so-called " geniality 
men" or genial thinkers of Germany, who, repelled by 
the insipidities of dry u common sense" characteristic of 
deism, unlocked the genuine sources of religion and poetry 
in the soul, and made the art of antiquity into a living ex- 
perience or part of the modern consciousness. 2 " It was 
not," says Dr. Schwartz, " that ordinary rationalism was 
too aggressive and destructive; it was only too shallow 
and common-place." The reaction was brought about by 
the dreary aspects of utilitarianism and the contemplation 
of a universe virtually God-less ; since rationalism had cut 
off that idea of miraculous interference in which alone the 
materialistic philosophy of theists and deists alike recog- 
nised any possible intercommunion with the divine. It was 
directed not so much against the bigotry of establishments 
as against rationalistic crudities and a would-be enlighten- 
ment which had much of the arrogance and intolerance 
of orthodoxy; for as the latter stigmatised opposition as 
infidelity, so rationalism habitually disparaged every view 
of religion varying from its own as superstitious and ab- 
surd. Reimarus was unable to rise from negation to genial 
appreciation ; Mendelssohn commiserated Homer and So- 
crates for not having lived in his own day, and thought 
the former would have been a perfect poet had he not been 

1 See Gervimis' History of German Poetry, vol. i. p. 285-287, etc., and 
Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 481. 

2 See Dr. W. Herbst " Das Classische Alterthum," p. 18, 19, etc. 

9 



130 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

unhappily possessed by those foolish conceits about the 
Olympian gods ! But the forms of art and of religion 
are really no matters of pure choice or fortuitous creations 
of caprice ; they grow naturally as palms in the soul's pri- 
mseval desert ; as productions of intelligence, they are unques- 
tionably intelligible ; but to make them so requires a faculty 
akin to that which produced them; — a sympathetic feeling, 1 
the imagination of the poet super-added to the sagacity of 
the philosopher. It was this congeniality of feeling which 
made Hamann, Stolberg, and Jacobi the prophets of a new 
sera ; which enabled Winckelman, Herder, Lessing, etc., 
to apply the Leibnitzian theory of development to his- 
torical phenomena ; to judge each product of genius, not 
according to the Procrustean standard of the modern mind, 
but the fitter and truer one afforded by its own circum- 
stances and character. About the same time, too, the re- 
sources of extraneous collateral knowledge were greatly 
increased. The close of the eighteenth century was pro- 
lific of antiquarian discovery, and archaeological study was 
stimulated by enlarged opportunities. The researches of 
Stuart and Chandler at Athens, the labours of Visconti in 
Rome, the excavations of Gavin Hamilton and Townley 
in Hadrian's Villa, the discovery of the Zendavesta by 
Anquetil, the establishment of the Asiatic Society by Sir 
"William Jones, and soon after the Egyptian explorations 
of Denon and the French savans, gave new incentives and 
new means of observation and comparison. Presently, 
illustrative contributions came in from Erse, Norse, and 
Teutonic legend ; and when Schelling carried back the 
mind, armed in the school of Kant with fresh powers of 
introspection and self-consciousness, 2 to a genial appre- 

1 "Der ftichtweg zum hoheren Alterthum, und mithin zum Gebiete der 
Mythus, ist, meines Bediinken's, die Auschauung, der Sinn." — Creuzer's 
Letters to Hermann on Homer, p. 89. 

2 At this time, says Freytag (Neue Bilder aus dem Leben des deutschen 
Volkes, p. 410, 411), there was a singular combination of poetry and philoso- 
phy, — of original genius and critical sagacity ; the author of the Laocoon 



THEORIES OF ALLEGORY AND "ACCOMMODATION." 131 

ciation of nature, the foundations of a scientific comprehen- 
sion of mythology l may be said to have been permanently 
laid in the conscious revival of those poetical perceptions 
in which mythi originated. 2 The French Euhemerism of 
Banier, and the still drier treatment of rationalists and 
deists, had long* ago been left behind in Germany by the 
school of Heyne, who, if he did not initiate the real com- 
prehension of the subject, at least gave a new impulse to 
it. He was followed by a multitude of distinguished 
scholars who, partly under his teaching and direction, 
made philology instrumental in archaeological research. 
Much conjectural matter still mingled in individual theo- 
ries, especially as to the Oriental derivation of current 
mythi, and the degree in which they may be supposed to 
incorporate historical events ; but on the whole the subject 
was better understood, and mythical instinct with all its 
accompaniments of unconscious symbolism and mimicry 
was recognised as a necessary phase in the general his- 
torical development of the human mind. 

«• 
Application to the Bible. — Theories of Allegory and 
"Accommodation." 

And the time at length arrived when the same principles of 
interpretation which had been successfully applied to pro- 
fane literature were brought to bear upon the Bible. 

was a poet; Schiller and Goethe not only enriched the stream of genial 
invention, but accurately scanned its cause and law. Similar observations 
occur in the work of Dr. Herbst, already quoted, p. 16, seq. 

1 Subsequently formulated by Karl Ottfried Miiller, and referred to by 
Strauss (Introduction to the Leben Jesu, § 14, pp. 75-78, Translation) as the 
basis of his theory. 

2 Once, says Schelling, it was the fashion to speak of two sources of religion, 
reason and revelation ; one as the principle of natural religion, the other of 
Christianity. But religion, whether as mythology or as Christianity, has a 
peculiar principle differing from mere reason ; rationality is not its first, but 
its latest form ; and mythology and revelation have always undergone a like 
treatment at the hands of the mere rationalist. In the view of the latter all 
mythologies appear absurd. 



132 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

Hitherto the Bible had always been treated exceptionally. 
Ordinary books are judged according to their previously 
ascertained meaning ; in the case of the Bible alone it had 
been customary to estimate the meaning according to 
opinions previously formed as to the nature and character 
of the book. Not that sacred literature had ever been 
treated by antiquity as standing entirely aloof from human 
criticism. But the usual object of exegesis was not so much 
to construe it as given, as to bring it into forced agreement 
with the preconceptions of the interpreter. Men persisted 
in seeing the reflection of their own notions in the docu- 
ments before them ; and hence several existing versions are 
much more interesting for the insight they afford into the 
opinions of the translators,, than as faithful representations 
of the sense of the originaL It was insisted that the author 
meant something different from the plain import of what he 
said, or that he meant only part of it ; he was seemingly 
inaccurate voluntarily, or partially inaccurate unconsciously. 
" In every religious record handed down from remote ages 
there is always much which, to advanced culture, seems 
inappropriate or false; but men do not pass suddenly 
from one system of thought to another : they first exhaust 
every imaginable expedient for reconciling the two j" 1 and 
thus a long interval elapses, filled by more or less ingenious 
efforts to mitigate incongruities by interpretation. The 
Bible has in this way been pre-eminently the victim of 
perennial torture. The Jewish Kabbis, and in a more phi- 
losophical spirit, Philo and other well-informed Jews at 
Alexandria, were the first who, recognizing incongruities in 
the Old Testament, tried to adapt it to their own require- 
ments by means of quibbling commentary or allegory. 
The Alexandrian Christians, Origen especially,- used the 
same or even greater freedom, not merely allegorising, but 
sometimes even discarding, the literal sense, when seemingly 
absurd or immoral ; and that as well in the New as in the 

1 Mill's Essays, vol. ii. pp. 303, 304. 



THEORIES OF ALLEGORY AND "ACCOMMODATION." 133 

Old Testament. And when the Bible became the great 
bulwark of the Reformation, both friends and foes allowed 
themselves a wide latitude in construing it. The Reformers 
accepted it as divine only so far as it did not clash with their 
own fundamental notions as to justification ; and the So- 
cinians and deists were equally arbitrary in their modifica- 
tions or rejections. Among the deists, indeed, the Bible 
was rather discarded than interpreted ; and by various 
classes of semirationalistic interpreters the bulk of the con- 
tents, all except an infinitesimal residuum, was virtually 
set aside. By the deists the bulk of Scripture was vaguely 
described as a set of fables, containing, indeed, a central 
essence of sound and valuable meaning identical with 
natural religion, but otherwise only the fraudulent inven- 
tion of priests, the obnoxious imputation being only occa- 
sionally varied by an appeal to allegory, a resource applied 
by Collins to the prophecies, and by Woolston to the 
miracles. But allegory, the ready resource of mystics, 
though for a moment offering a plausible basis for recon- 
ciling the actual writing with some ideal estimate of truth, 
is found on nearer approach to be fantastic and unsatisfac- 
tory. Few can seriously believe that the Sinaitic dispen- 
sation had anything to do with Hagar, or that the Mosaio 
unmuzzling of oxen was really intended, as St. Paul assures 
us it was, to accrue for the pecuniary benefit of the Chris- 
tian teacher. Still more unphilosophical was the theory 
which severed the knot without attempting to untie it, and 
which, instead of pausing to reconcile or explain, dismissed 
as superfluity or imposture all that could not be at once 
assimilated or comprehended. " The deistic idea of im- 
posture," says Eichhorn, " could only occur to those refus- 
ing to interpret ancient records in the spirit of their age. 
Had those records been composed at this day, we should 
certainly be driven to the alternative of miracle or inten- 
tional deceit ; but_the fact is otherwise : we have here the 
produce of simple uncritical minds unreservedly using their 



134 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

own conceptions and phraseology." As judgments became 
more rationally impartial and criticism more exact, it 
became impossible any longer to treat the bulk of the 
sacred books with supercilious indifference ; and when the 
ideal " Word" was separated and distinguished from Scrip- 
ture in the gross, it became necessary to put a more rational 
and plausible construction on the concrete actuality or lite- 
rary surplusage remaining on hand after the pure essence 
had been really or fancifully extracted. The expedient 
first adopted for the purpose was the so-called theory of 
" Accommodation," a system of explanation differing little 
from that of Allegory. According to this theory, whenever 
the Bible writers say what is irrelevant, unedifying, or 
untrue, they are not to be supposed to utter their real 
meaning, but to speak in conformity to the ideas and lan- 
guage of the times they wrote in. Such condescension, it 
was observed, is expressly sanctioned in the Bible; and 
that not only in regard to forms of language or to mere 
negative reserve, 1 but even in the positive adoption of pre- 
judiced ideas. 2 And the proceeding is justified by common 
experience. " Do not the better informed," says Semler, 
" often find it expedient, when dealing with ignorant per- 
sons, to adopt their ideas and language ; and do not pries cs 
habitually resort to the arts of the rhetorician?" In short, 
it seemed necessary to explain away what could neither be 
openly disavowed nor unequivocally admitted ; and men 
preferred to allow the founders and teachers of religion to 
have been in a degree deceivers rather than themselves 
deceived. Hence this resource of " Accommodation," which 
is one of the latest expedients resorted to in order to adapt 
an assumed revelation to modern ideas ; it admits the 
writer's untruthfulness, while exonerating his intelligence. 
Kepler, in the introduction to his treatise " De Stella 
Martis," pleads in this fashion against Scriptural objec- 
tions : — " Sacrse literse in rebus vulgaribus loquuntur cum 

1 Matt. xiii. 13 ; 1 Cor. iii. 1 ; John xvi. 12. 2 1 Cor. ix. 20. 



THEORIES OF ALLEGORY AND " ACCOMMODATION." 135 

hominibus humano more," etc. With the progress of free 
inquiry, the necessity for resorting to the expedient became 
more frequent ; and that not merely in relation to acces- 
sory matters such as angels, devils, and dsemoniacs, but 
even the specific doctrines of Christianity, and indeed the 
larger portion of the Bible. Here orthodoxy felt obliged 
to make a stand : to explain too much was worse than no 
explanation. It has been already seen how Sender's treat- 
ment of Scripture tended to promote true criticism by 
directing attention to the special character of the several 
writings, their dates, local colouring, and other literary 
particulars. But the method was defective, as being deter- 
mined by fanciful criteria, and clinging to the delusive 
notion of canonicity. Semler, guided in his pursuit of 
this ignis fatuus by the mere precarious test of moral dis- 
crimination, was led to attribute divinity to writings undis- 
tinguishable in point of moral merit from profane; and ( 
again to reject the claims of others as morally unprofitable, 
however strong the external evidence in their favour. Of 
this a striking instance occurs in the part he took in the 
controversy about the authenticity of the Apocalypse, which, 
judging from the moral tendency of the contents, he held 
to be. unworthy an apostle; as if any one could know 
d priori the characteristics of an apostle, apart from 
the writings critically authenticated as proceeding from 
him. He thus reverted from historical to dogmatical 
views; and the Accommodation theory was part of the 
same retrograde movement. To except the apostles indi- 
vidually from the general subserviency to local ideas 
observed in the Bible might seem a proper tribute of 
respect in the dogmatical believer, but was an inconsist- 
ency unworthy the historian. And then it occurred how 
impossible it was to acquiesce in an explanation implying 
so great a stigma on the characters of holy men — such a 
woeful lack of apostolic truthfulness ! What availed it 
to separate the author's person from the inaccuracies of his 



136 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

writing when by so doing his intelligence was rescued only 
at the expense of his integrity? Moreover, the writings 
being the only evidence remaining on which to depend, it 
might fairly be asked how we can know that the writers 
uttered the inaccuracies intentionally — that they were not 
themselves mistaken and misled by the feelings and 
fashions of their age ? How entirely gratuitous and 
inconsistent with all analogy to suppose that in these 
special instances the language misrepresents the meaning 
— that the ideas expressed are not the writer's natural 
form of thought, but only a disguise adopted for the occa- 
sion? Thus the Accommodation theory, in its original 
form as arbitrary as other kindred theories, led, through the 
change of voluntary into involuntary statement, to a purely 
historical consideration of the Bible, according to which 
the whole of it assumed more and more a character of 
natural and unconscious relativity, each writer being sup- 
posed honestly to express his own views, and to deviate 
from the others or from truth without any intentional mis- 
representation whatever. 



Historical and Philosophical Mythus. 

But to admit the relativity of the Bible statements in 
this latter sense was to admit their mythical character. 
And when it came to be understood that mythus is natural, 
that it is the universal symptom of an elementary condition 
of thought, modifying in a greater or less degree all human 
expression in all ages, the inference was inevitable that 
that which forms an ingredient in all other literature must 
also occur in the Bible, and that prejudice alone prevents 
our seeing it there. But such prejudices were already 
considerably weakened . Interpretation, instead of being dog- 
matical, had become very generally historical. It was no 
longer said, " this is in the Bible, therefore I must believe 



HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL MYTHUS. 137 

it ;" nor on the other hand, " I can't believe this, therefore 
it is not in the Bible ;" the writings could now be fairly 
confronted and understood as they were meant, and the 
interpreter might boldly say, " such a statement is doubt- 
less contained in the Bible, yet I don't belieye it ; never- 
theless I find in it an interesting record of what was currently 
believed at the time the statement was made." It was no 
longer necessary for those who either wholly or in part 
rejected the dicta of Hebrew lawgivers and prophets to 
treat them as allegorists or impostors ; they might be 
admitted to be honest, yet at the same time fallible and 
mistaken. Eichhorn, educated in the school of Heyne, 
was enabled to see this truth, and to perceive that miracu- 
lous agency and inspiration must in all ages and countries 
be alike admitted or denied. " It was common," he says, 
" to all ancient nations to fancy themselves in immediate 
communication with the Deity. Before men came to 
know the true causes of things, all striking events, lofty 
conceptions, useful laws and inventions, etc., were ascribed 
to divine suggestion. And this was not the belief of the 
people only ; it was that of the most highly gifted persons, 
who exulted in believing themselves the favoured and di- 
rected of Heaven. No one believes any longer the reality 
of such asserted interpositions except those alleged to have 
occurred among the Hebrews ; but reason requires that we 
treat all nations alike, and either acknowledge an inter- 
course with higher beings in all nations or in none." In- 
terpreters were thus led, as well by improved knowledge, 
as by the hopeless dilemmas of previous theories, to apply 
to many of the Bible details the general hypothesis of the 
mythical ; to admit with the deists the unreality of form, 
with the allegorists the ideality of meaning, but unlike 
both to take the unreal form not as deliberately chosen, 
but as naturally and unconsciously adopted. Yet even 
thus, in estimating the character of a given narrative, a 
source of ambiguity remained. The unreality might con- 



s. 



138 



SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 



sist in the unreal form of a real fact, or extend to fact as 
well as form, as something wholly imaginary and ideal. 
A miraculous recital, says Ernest Kenan, may be treated 
by the critic in two ways ; either admitting the substance 
of the narrative while discarding the form ; or else extend- 

< ing suspicion to both, and treating the whole recital as 
ideal. The first hypothesis concedes the substantial reality 
of the account by undertaking to explain it ; the other 
treats the recital itself as the phenomenon to be explained 
out of the spiritual conditions of human nature. In theo- 
logical language those following the first method of expla- 
nation have been termed " nationalists ;" those adopting 
the second are the mythologists properly so-called. Taking 
Heyne's division of mythi into " historical" and " philoso- 
phical," the former being involuntary misrepresentations 
of real facts, the latter unconsciously figurative expressions 
of mere opinion, the rationalising mythologist dealt with 
a given story in the former, the mythologist proper in the 
latter sense. 

The theory of mythical interpretation was of course 
at first applied to Scripture with timidity, and it was 
chiefly in the rationalistic sense above described that it 
was so used ; rarely or very hesitatingly was it admitted 
in the other. A large reserve was almost always made 
in favour of some assumed real fact, and the narrative was 
supposed to be only a partial distortion of history. " The 
supernatural colouring of ancient story," said Eichhorn, 
"is not fraudulent invention, but the genuine reflection of 
antiquity ; we must decypher the records tinged with 
it by discarding the bewildering haze of the miraculous, 
and seeking out the natural occurrences which were so 
obscured by simple imaginations." This " natural" theory 
of Eichhorn is what from the ancient Epicurean expounder 
of mythology has been termed " Euhemerism ;" it means 

I the view of mythi making them unintentional misrepresen- 
tations of an historical basis. On this principle Eichhorn 



HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL MYTHUS. 139 

explains " naturally" the stories of the Fall, of Noah, Abra- 
ham, Moses, etc. ; the forbidden fruit, he tells us, was 
poisonous ; the divine voice is to be understood as a clap 
of thunder ; the serpent's temptation was not a speech, but 
the example given in eating ; the cherished project of the 
patriot Moses to emancipate his people presented itself to 
his own mind as a divine commission ; the flame and 
smoke of Sinai arose from a fire purposely kindled on the 
mountain to produce a theatrical effect, increased acci- 
dentally by a thunder storm ; the luminous column was 
a torch carried in advance of the caravan, and the shining 
of the countenance of Moses the natural effect of his being 
hurried and over-heated, etc. Eichhorn hesitated to apply 
this so-styled " natural " mode of interpretation to the 
New Testament, and it was only in a few instances, such 
as the conversion of St. Paul, the miracle of Pentecost, 
and the angelic apparitions, that he ventured to do so. 
Others, however, went more boldly to work, especially 
Dr. Paulus, who by his " Commentary on the Gospels," 
and a later production, the " Life of Jesus," first obtained 
the reputation of a Christian Euhemerus. He at least laid 
the foundation for a critical life of Jesus by endeavouring 
to distinguish subjective from objective elements in the 
narrative ; trying to separate " the fact," or what was 
really felt or experienced, from what was mere " opinion," 
or the interpretations put upon the facts. Maintaining the 
general truth of the narrative, he tried to fill in the ex- 
planatory circumstances, and to arrange the whole in con- 
secutive order, discarding only the supernatural. He sup- 
posed Jesus to be simply a wise and good man, performing 
benevolent acts, which sometimes had a supernatural ap- 
pearance in consequence of his medical skill, or of mere 
accident. Hence an explanation of the New Testament 
as arbitrary as Eichhorn's of the Old. The Magi were 
travelling Jewish merchants, the star a comet, the vision 
of Zacharias the effect of an excited state of mind; his 



140 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

dumbness a sudden effect of paralysis ; the celestial glory 
revealed to the shepherds was simply a lantern ; the bap- 
tismal dove a real dove casually present; the tempta- 
tion an internal cogitation or trance continuing for an 
indefinite time, etc. The insufficiency of such explanations 
could not long be concealed ; and even Eichhorn, the father 
of Biblical Euhemerism, occasionally felt obliged to have 
recoursejto other views, as where, in treating of the Creation 
and Fall, he abandoned his earlier idea of distorted history 
in order to admit in these instances the mythical embody- 
ing of a thought. In short, the rationalistic compromise 
intended to reconcile philosophy and history in reality 
satisfied neither. De Wette, one of the most powerful 
advocates of the mythical as opposed to the semi-mythical 
or rationalistic treatment of the Old Testament, thus ex- 
presses himself on the subject: "The so-called 'natural' 
mode of explanation is incompatible with the admitted fact 
of the narrative being the only source of our acquaintance 
with the events therein represented as supernatural. Be- 
yond this representation we cannot go ; we must either 
receive or reject it ; and are certainly not justified in in- 
venting a natural course of circumstances as to which the 
narrative is silent. It is unwarrantable to refer to poetry 
the dress in which the events are clothed, while reserving 
( the events as historical; we ought rather to treat both 
alike, either accepting them as fact, or giving up the whole 
to poetry and my thus. If, for instance, rejecting the 
literal account of God's covenant with Abraham, we as- 
sume an historical basis in the shape of a dream, vision, 
or thought naturally occurring to Abraham's mind, it may 
be asked what ground apart from the narrative disclaimed 
we have for any such assumption; and whether it were 
not far more natural and consistent with analogy to sup- 
pose the visionary covenant to have been afterwards sug- 
gested by the event as an appropriate incident in the life 
of the Patriarch? If indeed we possessed, in addition to 



AS APPLIED TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 141 

the Biblical narrative, some other historical account to 
check the errors of the former, we might then be able to 
separate the historical essence from assumed embellish- 
ments and transformations ; as, for instance, in the case 
of the death of Herod Agrippa, where in addition to the 
account in Acts we have Josephus. But since in most 
cases we have no such controlling accounts, the critic who 
without any sure criterium to guide him pretends to 
separate truth from falsehood in a narrative in which both 
are promiscuously blended, only deludes himself and his 
readers with a tissue of vague and vain hypothesis." 

As Applied to the New Testament, 

These considerations shewed the necessity of a more 
thorough adoption of mythical theory, wholly giving up 
the suspected narrative as fact, but restoring it to history 
as a record of opinion ; not indeed in the arbitrary manner 
of the allegorist, but as an unpremeditated phenomenon, 
growing up with the regularity and certainty of nature. 
Spinoza, in so many ways the father of free thought, was 
in this respect too the pioneer of later opinion. It was he 
who first raised a warning voice against mingling our own 
fancies and feelings with Scripture, 1 and against assuming 
as a preliminary principle that belief in its veracity which 
ought to be accepted only as the issue of careful enquiry. 2 
He also particularly insisted that instead of following the 
absurd practice of taking the Bible as a whole, as if it had 
only one author, and arbitrarily explaining one part out of 
another, we ought, if really wishing to understand it, to 
study each part separately : a suggestion which, though 
anticipated by the good sense of Luther, and subsequently 
advocated by Oalixt, was never really and heartily acted on 
until the recent times of the Tubingen School. But Spi- 

1 Theol. Pol.,, chap. vii. % Preface, ibid. 



142 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS 

noza went farther. Although generally agreeing with the 
deists, he differed from them in acknowledging the perfect 
sincerity and truthfulness of the Bible writers ; and, holding 
the human mind itself to be the source of all real revela- 
tion and knowledge, he went far to identify its forms of 
utterance as psychological necessities reducible to law. In 
speaking of miracles, he was thus led to anticipate the 
theory of mythical interpretation. "We must not," he 
says, " be misled by false explanations of miracle into the 
idea that Scripture contains what is repugnant to natural 
light. Men rarely recount a thing as it really happened ; 
they mingle their own opinions and judgments with it; 
especially when they see or hear anything striking by its 
novelty or surpassing ordinary comprehension. In his- 
tories and chronicles men relate rather their opinions about 
things than the things themselves; and the same event 
assumes quite a different aspect when told by different per- 
sons." Semler, who in many ways gave official sanction 
to the opinions of Spinoza, partially adopted the mythical 
view, in regard, for instance, to the stories of Esther and 
Sampson ; Herder considered the theory of the early death 
of the beloved of heaven to be exemplified in the case of 
Enoch as well as in those of the Greek heroes beloved by 
Aurora; Eichhorn followed in the same path, which was 
further pursued by Gabler, Schelling, and others, who 
eventually adopted, without any superstitious reservation, 
the general principle of Heyne — " A my this omnis pris- 
corum hominum cum historia turn philosophia procedit." 
In 1820, G. L. Bauer published a " Hebrew Mythology of 
the Old and New Testaments," in which he attributes the 
reluctance to recognize a mythical character in Scripture 
to misconception of the nature of mythus, as if it implied 
intentional falsehood ; or else to a remnant of that super- 
stitious hallucination as to inspiration which was itself 
mythical. Bauer, it is true, made but a limited use of 
mythus in regard to the New Testament — as, for example, 



AS APPLIED TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 143 

in the accounts of the infancy ; but ere long the closing 
events of the career of Jesus — as the ascension — were 
similarly treated ; at last consistency prevailed, and a 
vein of mythus was discovered throughout. 

One of the chief hindrances to this discovery had been the 
belief in the cotemporaneous, or nearly cotemporaneous, 
character of the New Testament accounts, concurrently with 
the notion that great length of time as well as a thoroughly 
ignorant and barbarous age entirely destitute of written 
records, are the indispensable conditions for the rise and 
propagation of mythus ; whereas, in the time of Jesus, the 
so-called mythical age had seemingly long terminated, and 
writing had become common. Even in regard to the Old 
Testament the mythical view was not heartily accepted 
until the idea of the cotemporary character of the records 
had been relinquished, and the annalist was supposed to 
contemplate his subject through the dim mist of interven- 
ing ages. Schelling, however, perceived that mythi spring 
up among the vulgar very readily and quickly, in spite of 
the cotemporaneous existence of written documents ; and 
that in all ages, however polished the surface of society, 
the memory of celebrated men is apt to receive amplifica- 
tions of a more or less marvellous nature from popular 
tradition. Gabler, in a paper on this subject, remarked, 
that all antiquity is relative; that although, compared 
with Judaism, Christianity is young, still its origin is 
old and obscure enough to allow a certain fabulous haze 
to be cast over the history of its founder. And indeed 
cotemporaneous mythi are far from uncommon. The 
traveller Kohl mentions one of very modern growth, in 
reference to the burning of the Kremlin ; and Mr. Grote 
notices a tragical but utterly gratuitous story about 
Lord Byron which was circulated by his cotemporary 
Goethe. Indeed legendary matter is ever forming and 
circulating in obscure corners, just as granite is believed 
to be even now crystallising in the bowels of the earth. 



144 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

How often, with all our modern assistances of science 
and publicity, do we fancy ourselves strictly veracious, 
when really only uttering an erroneous opinion. How 
intimate and constant in human expression is the union 
of truth and falsehood, how difficult, how impossible, 
owing to the relative nature of our knowledge, the state- 
ment of pure unadulterated fact ! How often do we even 
now speak of " miraculous escapes" and " providential 
interpositions," phrases unconsciously inherited from a 
time when these interferences were sincerely and uni- 
versally believed. Among the illiterate Jews of the age 
of Jesus traditional misrepresentation was comparatively 
easy ; and we must not, says Strauss, allow ourselves 
to be misled by exalted conceptions of the literary culture 
of the Augustan age ; for as the sun illumines the moun- 
tain summits long before it penetrates the recesses of the 
valleys and ravines, the populace of the time were help- 
lessly unenlightened, and the cultivated minds of Greece 
and Rome stood on an eminence which was far from 
having been reached in Galilee and Judsea. In a state 
of mental excitement, especially of religious excitement, 
a short time suffices among uneducated persons to invest 
with a halo of the marvellous even well known occur- 
rences. The early Jewish Christians, whose peculiar dis- 
tinction was the religious enthusiasm styled "the gift of 
the Spirit," were eminently disposed to create out of their 
impressions of the Old Testament or otherwise symbolical 
scenes, such as those of the temptation and transfigura- 
tion ; and though it is not to be imagined that these 
accounts were deliberately invented and fashioned by an 
individual who wrote them down exactly as he would a 
poem, still in a congenial soil and under circumstances 
of natural aptitude such narratives would grow as it were 
spontaneously in untraceable channels of tradition, until 
they obtained consistency, and acquired a claim to be in- 
corporated in the gospels. The cotemporaneous existence 



AS APPLIED TO THE NEW TESTAMENT. 145 

of written documents on other subjects proves nothing, 
if it be shewn that for a long time there was no written 
account of the life of Jesus, especially of the infancy. 
Supposing information upon this subject to have been 
transmitted orally only, the narrative would easily become 
infected with the marvellous, and so assume the form of 
mythus. On many points where there was no tradition 
whatever to record, the mind was necessarily left to its 
own surmises. It was customary for pupils in the Jewish 
school to depend on memory for their retention of the long 
lessons of their teachers ; the hearers of Jesus must have 
done the same, and being for a considerable time in immediate 
expectation of their master's return or " second coming,'' 
held written memorials to be superfluous. 1 The application 
of the mythical theory is doubtless greatly facilitated by 
the conviction, of late years ever more and more certainly 
entertained, as to the comparatively late origin of many 
New Testament writings. And when we consider that the 
apostolic instructions, though sometimes given by way of 
letter, were far more generally oral, 2 that for a long time 
written was considered decidedly inferior and subordinate 
to verbal communication, 3 until the final victory of the 

1 See Credner's Einleitung, vol. i. pp. 193, 200 ; and Strauss' Life of Jesus, 
§ 9 p. 34. " The thought of committing to writing any of the scenes they 
witnessed or discourses they heard could not naturally present itself to the 
apostles in the ordinary course of their ministry. Literature was at the 
lowest ehb at that time in Palestine ; even the second law, the sacred 
SeuTep&xrezs, in the possession of which the learning of Jewish men of letters 
almost exclusively consisted, were transmitted by oral tradition, as they had 
been from the time of the exile." Thirlwall's Preface to Schleiermacher's 
Luke, p. cxviii. — Before the Mishna and Gemara were committed to writing 
nothing was so highly prized among the Jews as a ready memory, and faithful 
recollection was a religious duty. Rabbi Dosthai said, —he who forgets a single 
word of the " Mishna" or tradition has incurred deadly sin, since it is written 
(Deut. iv. 9) " Take heed to thyself and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou 
forget," etc., etc. (See Gfrorer, Urchristenthum i. p. 169). 

2 Heb. ii. 1., iv. 2; Rom. x. 14, 17 ; Gal. iii. 2, 5 ; 2 Thess. ii. 2, 15, and 
other passages in Credner's Einleitung, i. p. 195. 

3 See Acts xv. 22, 23, 27 ; 2 Tim. ii. 12. Comp. the words of Papias 
Euseb : H.E. 3, 39. Books were treated as suspicious and dangerous, as 
affording opportunities for introducing heresy. See the Epistola Petri ad 
Jacobum, prefixed to the Clem. Homilies, ch. 3. 

10 



146 



SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 



latter in the ascendancy of church tradition ; that during 
the first centuries, in Justin, Athenagoras, and Melito, the 
Old Testament continues, as in the gospels, to be the sole 
written standard of inspired authority ; that no mention 
is met with in the New Testament of Christian " Scripture" 
until late in the second century, 1 and that no notice occurs 
of a Christian Canon until the time of Eusebius, and even 
then only of an incipient and fluctuating one, — we shall 
feel less difficulty in conceiving how, apart from any in- 
tention to deceive, a large amount of mythical particulars, 
either in filling up blanks, in supplying requisitions of con- 
ceptional propriety, or merely in the way of glorification 
and embellishment, may have insensibly mingled with the 
gospel narratives. 

The Leben Jesu. 

Strauss' " Life of Jesus" was a far bolder and more 
systematic use of mythical interpretation than had before 
been attempted. Hitherto the theologians who allowed the 
existence of mythus in the New Testament, had always 
shewn a preference for what is styled " historical mythus ; " 
i.e. a narrative embellished by imagination out of a sub- 
stratum of fact. The respectability of the record and the 
interests of theology seemed comparatively safe, provided 
some historical basis was retained ; so that long after the 
main point had been conceded, men continued to fight 
for a tattered shred of history with the same obstinacy 
with which they had already contended for an " inner 
essence" of revelation, or a small fraction of apostolic 
authorship. Many so-called mythical explanations of this 
equivocal kind differed little, except in name, from what 
had been current as rationalistic or "natural;" the only 
difference being that the embellishments or exaggerations 

» 2 Peter iii. 16. 



THE LEBEN JESU. 147 

referred by the latter to the actors concerned or to the 
narrator, were in the former ascribed to tradition. Expla- 
nations were put forth as "mythical" haying little or 
no pretension to be so called; as where the supposed 
"fact" of Zachariah's dumbness was made the basis of the 
supernatural narrative of the birth of the Baptist ; or 
where the angelic appearances at Christ's nativity and 
burial were respectively explained as meteors or as grave 
clothes. But the case was different when the balance be- 
gan to incline towards what in somewhat ambiguous phra- 
seology has been called "philosophical" my thus. This, 
which in plain terms, means the unconscious statement 1 of 
mere opinion as fact, or the wholly gratuitous fabrications 
of imagination, was far more offensive to orthodox feeling, 
as annihilating the historical basis, and ascribing the whole 
narrative in a greater or less degree to creative fancy. 
Strauss, however, undertook to shew that not merely in 
the accounts of the infancy, but in most of the important 
supernatural events of the life of Jesus, the only really 
plausible explanation is the mythical, taking the term in 
this unwelcome sense, and generally excluding rationalistic 
as well as supernaturalistic interpretations, nationalists 
in abandoning the supernatural clung only the more 
anxiously to a fancied basis of history ; the mythical in- 
terpreter proceeded to drop this supposed basis, resolving 
the whole into the dramatic expression of an idea. And 
the inference was worked out by Strauss, not by vague 
guesswork, but by a close historical analysis of cotempo- 
rary opinion and precedent ; shewing how by psychological 
necessity many circumstances became incorporated with 
the gospels having no historical foundation whatever. Thus 

1 In his remarks on the mythical theory of Stranss, Dean Milman fre- 
quently introduces the word "design ;" "formed with the design of developing 
an ideal character of Jesus ;" " the Leben Jesu is a constant endeavour to 
shew with what design each separate myth assumed its present form," etc. 
Such language indicates a defective acquaintance with the real nature of 
mythus. 



148 



SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 



it was a prevalent Jewish opinion that remarkable men are 
unexpectedly born of aged parents, and heralded by hea- 
venly messengers ; Ishmael, Isaac, Samuel, and Samson 
had been so announced; recorded precedent became the 
law of expectation, and hence a similar announcement of 
the birth of John the Baptist ; his father Zachariah had to 
undergo, like Sarah, a rebuke for incredulity ; his dumb- 
ness was suggested by the temporary loss of a sense 
by Isaiah, Daniel, Paul, etc., after celestial visions. 
So, too, many of the particulars of the life of Jesus, 
in reality forgotten, were gratuitously filled up out 
of received types of Scripture precedent and Messianic 
anticipation. It was an acknowledged axiom of the Jewish 
Rabbis that the miraculous circumstances distinguishing 
the annals of their great men were to be reiterated in the 
Messiah ; this idea became the prolific source of a variety 
of stories which, though historically impossible, seemed 
necessarily to belong to the character of Jesus. The ex- 
pectation which had been growing for so many ages, and 
which, in his time, was at its height, was not indefinite, 
but accurately determined beforehand in all its more im- 
portant features. The Rabbis combined with visionary 
dreaming the servility of pedants; and their abject ad- 
herence to precedent, making the future an exact reitera- 
tion of the past, was formulated in the proposition borrowed 
from Ecclesiastes i. 9 : " that which hath been is that which 
shall be, and there is nothing new under the sun." 1 Thus, 
according to a mistaken version of Isaiah in the Septuagint, 
the Messiah was to be born of a virgin ; another dictum 
made it necessary that he should be named before birth ; 2 
and, according to a Rabbinical application of Micah v. 1, 
born in the town of Bethlehem ; in accordance with these 
data the connection of the parents of Jesus anterior to his 

1 See Jerusalem Geniara, quoted in Gfrorer's Urchristenthum, ii. p. 322. 

2 According to the Talmud, six persons were named before their birth; 
Isaac, Ishmael, Moses, Solomon, Josiah, and Messiah. 



THE LEBEN JESTJ. 



149 



birth is limited to betrothal ; and they are gratuitously and 
unhistorically sent all the way to Bethlehem from their 
own residence at Nazareth in order to fulfil a misunder- 
stood prophecy, and with the ostensible object of sub- 
mitting to a census which was chronologically impossible. 1 
Instead of the poetic incident of the angelic announce- 
ment of the nativity to the shepherds, as stated in 
Luke, Matthew details a manifestation of it to Eastern 
magi by means of a miraculous star; this star being a 
recognised Messianic prognostic derived through the Tar- 
gumists from Numbers xxiv. 17, 2 whence the name "Bar- 
Cocheba," " son of a star," adopted by the Messianic pre- 
tender in the time of Hadrian. 3 Again, it was a common 
idea that the lives of eminent men are exposed to imminent 
peril during infancy ; tradition therefore simultaneously 
gratified the feeling of enmity to Herod and of veneration 
for Jesus by unhistorically making the former the perpe- 
trator of a massacre contemplated prior to the circum- 
stances said to have occasioned it, 4 and which was intrinsi- 
cally and entirely gratuitous, since in so small a place 
as Bethlehem Herod might have easily identified the ob- 
noxious child either simultaneously with the visit of the 
magi, or after their departure. 

The Messiah being assumed to be a prophet, or rather 
the best and greatest of prophets, the life of Jesus neces- 
sarily contains all that was glorious in the life of prophets, 
as well as all that was tragical in their sufferings. And 
not only was it generally predetermined in popular ex- 
pectation that he should work miracles, but the parti- 
cular kind of miracles was prefixed by Old Testament 
types and declarations. Thus .the enquiring Baptist 5 

1 Life of Jesus, vol. i. p. 206. 

2 See Bertholdt, Christologia, p. 55, and Strauss vol. i. p. 239. 

3 Comp. Grfrorer's Urchristenthum, ii. p. 358. 

4 For the " diligent enquiry" previously made of the wise men as to the 
time of the star's appearance, anticipated the eventuality of their non-return, 
which alone made it important. 

» Matt. ii. 5. 



150 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

is referred to the prophecy fulfilment in restoring sight 
to the blind and hearing to the deaf; 1 the argument 
usually resorted to on such occasions being, not that cer- 
tain particular events are proved by competent testimony 
to have actually happened, but that, being admitted charac- 
teristics of the Messiah, they must have been accomplished 
in Jesus. 2 Strauss very convincingly points out the use- 
lessness of the efforts often made to escape the unwelcome 
conviction that Jesus shared cotemporary beliefs in regard to 
daemoniacal possession, and the futility of resorting to figur- 
ative exegesis, or to the "accommodation" theory for the 
purpose — as if, forsooth, Jesus dishonestly used language 
not expressing his real sentiments, and that not only to the 
vulgar, but to those intimate associates who were initiated in 
" the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven!" When Jesus 
in a purely theoretical discourse gratuitously describes to 
his disciples the usual proceedings of unclean spirits, 3 it is 
impossible not to see that he adopts the belief implied by 
his language — namely, the current Jewish superstition as 
to spirits haunting remote and unsightly places, and enter- 
ing into the bodies of men and animals in order the better 
to gratify their impure inclinations. In this belief not only 
madness and epilepsy, but dumbness, 4 a gouty contrac- 
tion, 5 even canine madness, or the cholic, 6 were ascribed 
to the influence of daemons. And when we know that the 
supposed number of these beings was very great, divided 
into imaginary regiments and brigades after the analogy 
of the Roman army under the denominations Massaloth, 
Legion, Karton, Gistra (i.q. Castra), etc. etc. 7 — we can- 
not fail to recognize the origin of the name assigned in 
Mark and Luke to the plural daemon of the Gadarene or 

1 See Isaiah xxxv. 5, 6, and xlii. 7. 

2 See Matt. iv. 14 — viii. 17. Luke xxii. 37 ; xxiv. 44, etc. etc. 

3 Matt. xii. 43. Comp. Mark ix. 29. Luke x. 18-20. 

4 Matt. ix. 32— xii. 22. 5 Luke xiii. 11. 

6 See Gfbrer's Urchristenthum i. p. 412. 

7 See as to this Gfrorer's Urchristenthum, vol. i. 357, 409. 



THE LEBEN JESTT. 151 

Gergasene, 1 — afterwards banished to the swine ; and the 
scandal of the latter incident, which has caused such 
infinite perplexity and puerile evasion in the commenta- 
tors, is avoided by supposing the spontaneous growth of a 
legendary tradition, occasioned partly by the idea that 
daemons shun incorporeality, partly by the usual wish to 
give an impressive external proof of the reality of the 
exorcism. 2 

According to the usual rendering of Dent, xviii. 15, it 
was commonly thought that the Messiah was to be a second 
or greater Moses. 3 Hence the machinations of Pharaoh 
against the infant Moses had to be repeated in those of 
Herod against Jesus. The singular extension of the mas- 
sacre to "two years and under" is explained by the Jewish 
opinion that the massacre of Jewish children under Pharaoh 
continued for two years. 4 The forced unhistorical journey 
of the holy family to Egypt reiterates the circumstances in 
Exod. iv. 19 ; — Jesus fasts forty days in the wilderness 
because Moses subsisted for the same space of time on the 
mere word of God ; 5 his temptation and victory were in- 
ferred from the general character of the " Prince of this 
world" as " tempter," 6 and the legendary conflicts of the 
same personage with Moses. Similar in origin are the 
stories of the transfiguration or shining of the countenance, 7 
the walking or passing over the sea, the feeding the multi- 
tude in the wilderness with heavenly bread, the choice of 
twelve apostles, and especially of the seventy supernumerary 

1 Matt. viii. 28. Mark v. 9. 

2 Strauss here omits to mention the peculiar character attached in mythology 
to swine as infernal animals, the appropriate sacrifices to the infernal gods 
(see Herodotus ii. 47, 48) ; a notion apparently suggested by the animal's habit 
of rooting up the earth, and which probably formed the chief ground of its 
reputed impurity. 

3 Compare Schbttgen's Horse Hebraicae, ii. p. 251, etc., and Gfrbrer's 
Urchristenthum, ii. p. 323, etc. 

4 See Pirke Elieser, chap, xlviii. in Gfrbrer's Urchristenthum, 354. 

5 Compare Gfrbrer, ibid. p. 385. 
« Strauss, vol. i. p. 388. 

7 Compare Ecclesiastes viii. 1 . 



152 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

ones, imitating the seventy elders added to the twelve 
princes of tribes of Mosaic appointment. 1 The ascension is 
copied from the legendary precedent of a similar miraculous 
close of the life of Moses ; 2 and the miracle of Pentecost, 
the traditional anniversary of the giving of the law on 
Sinai, is only an application of familiar Jewish notions to 
the parallel promulgation of the gospel, 3 where the speaking 
of foreign languages is superadded to the original idea of 
the " unknown tongues" in Corinthians, in conformity with 
the traditional ideology requiring an equal number of lan- 
guages and nations. 4 Many of the recorded circumstances 
of the life of Jesus are thus neither real facts nor gratuitous 
inventions, but parts of an already formed ideal which was 
readily transferred by popular imagination to the canvas 
of history. Doubtless, if we assume the gospels to have 
been written by eye-witnesses, or competently informed 
cotemporaries, it will be difficult to entertain the above 
hypothesis, at least to the extent advocated. But Strauss, 
in a short preliminary view of the question as to literary 
origin and authorship, 5 shews that he is here dealing 
with an open question; that in no one instance among 
the historical books is there satisfactory reason to believe 
that we possess the testimony of an apostolic eye-witness 
or even well-informed cotemporary ; that the authorship of 
the fourth gospel in particular is extremely uncertain, not 
only from the immediate denial of its apostolicity by the 

1 See Clement's First Epist. to the Corinthians, chap. xlii. Recognitiones 
dementis, chap. xl. Also Numbers i. 44; vii. 84; xvii. 6. Matt. xix. 28. 

2 See Clem. Alex. Strom, i. 23, Op. i. 412, and vi. 15, Op. ii. 806. Jose- 
phus, Ant. iv. 8, 48. Origen on John, Op. iv. 237. 

3 See Gfrorer's Urchrist. ii. 390. 

4 The writer may he permitted to refer for the sake of brevity to a former 
book, " Progress of the Intellect," vol. ii. p. 330 seq., for a detailed expla- 
nation of the growth of this legend ; also to Zeller's important work on the 
Acts, pp. Ill, 114, etc. 

5 Introd. § 13, vol. i. pp. 56, 57 in the Translation. It is to be hoped that 
the anxious enquirers for truth who complained of Strauss for his insufficient 
examination of the problem of the gospels, are now satisfied by the voluminous 
labours of the Tubingen School. 



ITS EFFECTS. 153 

Alogians, and the circumstance of there being two Johns 
simultaneously eminent in Ephesus, but from the absence 
of any clear evidence of its existence until the middle of 
the second century, and especially the silence of Irenaeus 
as to any testimony of his master Polycarp in its favour ; — 
in short, that the titles prefixed to the Biblical books really 
represent no more than the author's design, and the uncritical 
opinion of antiquity as to their origin. So that unless we 
are prepared to evade or beg the question by assuming a 
necessarily non-mythical character in the Bible, there is 
no external improbability whatever to rebut the evidence 
forced upon us in this respect by internal probabilities and 
analogies. 

Its Ejects. 

Strauss's work was met with an outcry of theological 
rancour proportioned to its popularity ; and the epithets 
" Antichrist," " Iseariot," " remorseless and cold-blooded 
criticism," etc., evinced not more the antipathy of oppo- 
nents than the entire absence of the usual equivocating 
insincerity in the book, as well as its vigour and extensive 
circulation. And yet nothing absolutely new had been dis- 
covered. Strauss only wrought out as a whole and pur- 
sued to its full consequences what had been already initiated 
by others. Nor did he, as sometimes invidiously suggested 
assert everything in the gospels to be mythical, including 
the existence of Jesus. On the contrary he declared him- 
self bound to hold the balance equal, and to deal with 
mythus and legend on a footing of strict impartiality ; 
neither refusing to recognize the possibly historical elements 
of a given narrative, nor on the other hand going back to 
the strained efforts of what was called " natural interpreta- 
tion." He by no means undervalued the importance of 
Christ's personal agency and character; he only pleaded 
that, if Christianity owed its substantive existence to Christ, 



154 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

Christ on the other hand owed many circumstances and 
attributes of his traditional character to the pious homage 
and creative imagination of Christians. And indeed several 
of his ablest opponents admitted to a considerable extent 
the validity of his argument; Ullmann and Neander ex- 
cluding the supernatural as much as possible, and differing 
only as to the degree in which they allowed the interference 
of a mythical element. Yet. the prominence assigned to 
the mythical by Strauss, the acknowledged practical diffi- 
culty of marking the precise limit between fact and fiction 
in special cases, and the introduction of a speculative 
Christological appendix at the close of the work, certainly 
tended to obliterate those external features of the narra- 
tive which were most readily appreciated and popularly 
cherished as historical. And however reasonably Strauss 
might protest that his own theory offered the best means of 
vindicating the true intent and respectability of the Bible 
against the more damaging apologies of its would-be de- 
fenders, — that only by resigning the pretended history of 
fact can we approach the true history of thought, — still it 
was difficult to persuade vulgar minds that they had not 
been cheated or injured by the attempted substitution, or 
that the dreamy Eldorado of Supernaturalism was less 
intrinsically valuable than the homely prose of ordinary 
motives and ideas. Men dislike admitting their real 
ignorance and nakedness ; they shun a declaration of 
spiritual as they do of material insolvency ; and the great 
Socratic and Kantian revolutions, making abandonment of 
the conceit of wisdom the first condition of acquiring it, 
were not to be carried without a struggle. Especially 
great was the difficulty of asserting this maxim in theo- 
logy ; insurmountable the reluctance to abdicate in super- 
natural revelation what seemed the last hope of absolute 
religious certainty. Schleiermacher indeed had already 
set the example of resolving Christianity into symbolism ; 
his treatment of the so-called Christian " facts," the miracu- 



ITS EFFECTS. 155 

lous birth, resurrection, and ascension, the doctrine of 
devils, nay miracle generally, was no less sceptical and 
unscrupulous than that of Strauss ; not to mention that by 
appealing almost exclusively to the spiritual or ideal Christ, 
St. Paul himself had long ago disparaged those external 
circumstances of the life of Jesus in which he had no per- 
sonal share, and had gone far to countenance that " docetic" 
interpretation of his character 1 which was a virtual denial 
of them. But Schleiermacher's view was formed in the 
seeming interests of pietism, and shrouded in the mystical 
reserve of Bible phraseology ; whereas Strauss committed 
the inexpiable offence of honestly and clearly revealing the 
true state of the problem. His real crime was plain speak- 
ing ; the unreserved and unequivocal expression of all that 
others had either from want of consistency or of courage 
suppressed or disguised. And the impression was all the 
more exquisitely painful and provoking for the very reason 
that the disclosure was in fact not novel ; because it was 
only the consistent continuation of a theory already in a 
certain measure recognised by theologians ; because at the 
very moment of an ostentatious revival of ecclesiastical 
prudery the importunate critic unseasonably disclosed the 
real tendencies and surmises of an intensely incredulous 
but hypocritical age, and discarding the customary affected 
i air of pious mystery, unveiled the whole truth with the 
most perfect mastery of the materials, and consummate 
skill in exposition. He in fact displayed before the 
Christian mind all that it secretly apprehended but feared 
to acknowledge, and the age stood aghast at the too faithful i 
reflection of its own image. As Strauss says himself at the 
commencement of the " Glaubenslehre," the halcyon days 
were over when the dream of a definitive reconciliation 
between theology and philosophy could be cherished ; when I 

1 See the expression in Bomans viii. 3 : dfioiu/xa crapKos a/xaprias. Hence 
to the docetic description (Philip, ii. 8) there is hut a step. Compare Baur's 
Paulus, p. 463. 



156 



SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 



the wolf was to lie down witli the lamb, the panther with 

j the kid. Henceforth a "Christian philosopher" was a mon- 

' strosity ; Jesuitical evasion appeared no longer possible. 

It seemed no more within any one's power to blend the 

j advantages of light with the wages of iniquity, to be at the 
same time a scientific enquirer and a sound churchman. The 
mirage of "accommodation" vanished, the flattering illusion 
as to the possibility of a compromise was suddenly dispelled. 
Formerly Socinians, Arminians, Quakers, etc., had all to a 

» , certain extent dealt freely with religion ; but though many 
a hair had been pulled from the tail of the ecclesiastical 

- * steed by rationalizing divines, a decent stump of orthodoxy 
sufficient to maintain a respectable position in the eyes of 
the world had always been allowed to remain. It was 
truly pleasant to indulge in the luxury of a little freedom ; 
but it was intolerable to confront the consequences of a 
frank and full confession. To those unacquainted with the 
extent and endurance of popular credulity, even to those 
who, though in habitual communication with the public 
mind, were hardly, even under these favouring circum- 
stances, aware how eagerly men hug deception, how readily 
they submit to any paltry subterfuge rather than take the 
trouble to think, and assume the responsibility of rational 
beings, — it seemed that a crisis was come, that the time 
for evasion was over, and that there remained only the 
bitter alternative of confessing participation in the accursed 
thing by approving and following the outspoken critic, or 
of surrendering every pretence of free investigation. The 
easier and safer expedient was that generally adopted. 
Keinvigorated ecclesiasticism bestirred itself to do battle on 
behalf of the invaded sanctuary ; the intrepid objector was 
coughed down, preached against, ignored ; and, as in a recent 
instance in England, 1 the best passport to official favour 

1 A distinguished English prelate is said to have substituted for every other 
test of qualification for Holy Orders the simple question : "Do you repudiate 
' 'Essays and Reviews ?' " 



ISSUE OF THE CONTROVERSY. 157 

and influence was a strenuous repudiation of Strauss. " The 
Book/' says an English controversialist, 1 "is scarcely known * 
in our language ; the booksellers won't have it ; the good * 
sense of the public rejects it." As if, without any acquaint- 
ance with the obnoxious book, the public could exercise any 
real discretion on the subject ; — as if the clergy, after keep- 
ing the public mind in ignorance by garbling and suppress- 
ing the evidence, were competent to quote that very igno- 
rance in proof of a deliberate repudiation ! But the virulence 
of attack only revealed the extent of latent sympathy, and 
Strauss may well boast 2 not only that his book remains 
materially unrefuted, but that for the last twenty-five years c 
since its publication no important work on theology has 
appeared without exhibiting unquestionable traces of its 
influence. 

Issue of the Controversy. 

It may seem superfluous to advert more particularly to 
the many sorry expedients which have been resorted to in 
order to misrepresent Strauss ; and yet it is absolutely 
necessary to have a clear conception of the issue of the 
controversy which modern apologists have been disposed 
to treat as decisive of their cause. "The same advan- 
tage,'' says Dr. W. H. Mill, 3 " which a physician obtains by 
a disease coming to a crisis, is derived to the defender of the 
Christian cause from the unsparing {i.e. honest and unpre- 
varicating) method of Strauss." " If miracles be impos- 
sible," says Dr. Mansel (Aids to Faith, p. 6), " the benefits 
obtained by Christ's cross and passion are no longer the 
objects of Christian faith and hope; if He professed to 
work miracles, and wrought them not, what warrant have 
we for the trustworthiness of his other teaching ? " 

1 Dr. W. H. Mill, Christian Advocate at Cambridge. 

2 In his " Preface to Hutten's Dialogues," p. lvi. 

3 On Mythical Interpretation, p. 2. 



158 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

The declared object of Strauss is to analyze and criticise 
the narrative contents of the New Testament ; to expose 
its internal self-contradictions, and the far-fetched ineffectual 
1 attempts of would-be "Harmonists" to explain or conceal 
them. But his adversaries, shrinking from the main 
question, adroitly shift the argument to an issue more 
promising to themselves. In a distinct and somewhat 
irrelevant appendix Strauss had endeavoured to allay pious 
anxieties by shewing that, in spite of criticism, the heart 
of Christianity is untouched ; that after dismissing the 
supposed history, there still remains a substratum of ideal 
truth sufficient to indemnify the feelings and satisfy religion. 
For this purpose he enumerated the various theoretical con- 
structions of Christianity successively resorted to by modern 
philosophical exegesis, ending with the speculative "Christ- 
ology" of Hegel ; — according to which the union of the 
human and divine natures, mythically ascribed to a single 
individual, is asserted literally and truly in regard to 
humanity at large. This afforded an opportunity for dis- 
ingenuous opponents, who, unable to face the critic, thought 
to gain an easy victory by pressing the attack against the 
speculative Hegelian. " It is far more," says Dr. Mill (p. 11), 
" from a desire of working out on an historical ground the 
philosophical principles of his master, than from any at- 
tachment to mythical theory, — that we are to deduce the 
destructive process applied by Strauss to the life of Jesus. 
The spirit of the desired conclusion pervades all the earlier 
parts of the work. The freedom from prepossession boasted 
by the author only indicates the substitution of a new pre- 
possession for the old and most probably legitimate one, 
by which the divinely imposed laws of man's nature require 
him to be governed ; — and is nothing more than a deter- 
mination to make all considerations of reverence for older 
authority to yield to the application of the Hegelian meta- 
physics which he considers as established truth." How 
little this insinuation really agrees with the general drift 



ISSUE OF THE CONTROVERSY. 159 

of the "Leben Jesu" will be self-evident to every im- 
partial reader; and the artifice recalls the trick by 
which Sheridan once contrived to elude an importunate 
equestrian creditor by an unexpected attack on his weak 
side : "A fine spirited nag that of yours; pray let me see 
his paces ; " when the compliance of the applicant of course 
gave the ingenious defaulter the opportunity of escape. 
But what is the "new prepossession" really meant? It 
cannot be the special Hegelian rendering of the dogmatic 
import of the life of Jesus, for this is little more than a 
collateral illustration or appendix to the main subject of 
Strauss' work, and in his " Glaubenslehre " the author 
repeatedly makes this very matter the subject of distinct 
animadversion, deriding those fantastic transformations or 
allegorical constructions of dogma by which speculative 
philosophy had often appeared to reinstate what in fact it 
only more emphatically overrode and obliterated. 1 In all 
inductive reasoning negative instances are far more im- 
portant and influential than affirmative; and it was 
especially the negations, here making the substance of 
the argument, which courted and challenged refutation, 
Strauss of course had an undoubted right to digress, to 
offer, if he chose, philosophical constructions of what he 
held to be the Christian idea ; but he might be wrong 
in the particular construction suggested without any in- 
jury to his main argument ; he might be wrong too in 
injudiciously providing by such problematical suggestions 
an easy opportunity for cavillers to evade the real question. 
Hermeneutics naturally follow criticism. When told that 
a given narrative of unquestioned importance is primarily 
unhistorical, we naturally proceed to ask its real character 
and import. And if, under cover of a philosophical ren- 
dering of ancient symbols really implying their literal 
irrelevancy or untruthfulness, the answer leads some in- 

1 Glaubenslehre, vol. i. pp. 66, 351, and ii. p. 193. 



160 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

experienced neophyte to imagine there has been no in- 
terruption in his conceptions, — that he continues to believe 
the same thing in the same sense, and with the same kind 
of certainty as before, he is certainly deluded, and this is 
unquestionably the effect of a large portion of the dishonest 
equivocating theology of the present day; — but no such 
imposition is here practised ; the student is amply warned 
not to mistake philosophical for dogmatical ideas ; the 
ground is distinctly and unmistakeably marked out, and 
we are avowedly transferred from the supremacy of creed 
to the speculative suggestions of the critic. 

But to revert to the question, what is the real "prepos- 
session" alluded to by Dr. Mill as forming the essential 
framework and foundation of the Leben Jesu ? The 
answer will be found in a simple negation which is by 
no means specifically Hegelian. It is that postulate of 
divine immanency and of nature's undeviating order, 
leaving absolutely no room for miraculous interferences, 
which is the fundamental assumption, not only of Strauss's 
Leben Jesu, but of all modern philosophy. In making 
this assumption, Strauss certainly lies open to the charge 
of prepossession. He does not approach the subject 
with a mind entirely vacant and unfurnished. Such 
vacuity had been as undesirable as impossible; for if 
the^evil genius of prejudice often maintains its hold in 
spite of scientific culture, how can its absence be expected 
in minds entirely uneducated and unoccupied ? " We 
cannot, we ought not," says Neander himself, in the 
preface to his Life of Jesus, " to abjure those preposses- 
sions derived from the eternal laws of the Creator and the 
moral order of the universe which constitute the ground 
and support of our being." The critic is assuredly as little 
free from prepossession as his adversaries ; but there is a 
difference between prepossessions founded on knowledge 
and those arising from the want of it ; between such as 
are superstitiously gratuitous, and those which the laws of 



ISSUE OF THE CONTROVERSY. 161 

the universe and of our own being compel us to adopt. 
The fundamental postulate of the " Leben Jesu" is that of 
the undeviating order of nature and consequent impossi- 
bility of miracle ; an inference so inevitably forced upon 
us in the teeth of uneducated prepossession by reason and 
by the ever accumulating force of scientific evidence, as 
to have long ago become the first necessity of educated 
thought, — the axiom, in fact; by which we measure other 
judgments; so that when at the present day we are told 
of marvellous " facts" or feats of spiritualism, not as a mere 
jest or matter for enquiry, but as miraculous manifestations 
defying enquiry, we need no argument or scientific instru- 
ment to jolt us into a conviction of their falsehood, but 
answer at once — 

" Miracles are ceased, — 
And therefore we must needs admit the means 
How things are perfected." 

" The question is not one of mere testimony, its general 
value, or specific failures. It refers to those antecedent 
considerations which must govern our entire view of the 
subject, and which, being dependent on higher laws of 
belief, are paramount to all attestation." 1 Dean Milman, 
in his remarks on the " Leben Jesu," calls the presumption 
against miracles, as entertained by Strauss, " dogmatical" 
and " unphilosophical;" but he fails to shew to what kind of 
philosophy the reprobated assumption is opposed ; although h 
it is plain from the language elsewhere used 2 that it is little 
more than the church philosophy of " fides precedit intel- 
lectual, " a maxim true in itself, but very misleading in its 
ordinary application. " Behold," says Dr. Mill, " the last 
consequences of thorough-going infidelity ! God robbed of 
his power to work miracles ! God deprived of that which 
man or beast, even the meanest reptile, can do in exerting 
a moving will to counteract the impulses to which inani- 

1 See Essays and Reviews, p. 107. 

2 See Dr. Mill's Mythical Interpretation, pp. 3, 84, etc. 

11 



162 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

mate matter is subjected !" Dr. Mill does not exactly side 
with the Oxford Professor who lately discovered that the 
human will suspends the law of gravitation ; but he says 
evasively (p. 81), " Is not every agency of pure will over 
matter, whether proceeding from an intellectual or a merely 
animal and sentient being — the hurling of a stone into the 
air for instance, — a real positive interference in this very 
sense, with the order and course of nature? For though 
involving no suspension of its laws, even for an instant, 
is it not an interruption of its regular course by a power 
extraneous to it, and irreducible to any calculation of 
causes why it should be exerted or withholden ? " 

We are here again referred to the external God repu- 
diated by Schleiermacher, the unintelligible caprice of a 
personal being, whose legs the child not unreasonably ex- 
pects to see dangling from the sky, and whose reported 
"going down" to see the Babel-builders perplexed the 
self-conscious schoolboy as to the possible misconduct of 
the angels in his absence. And after all no absolute 
miracle is claimed ; no law of nature is said to be for a 
moment interrupted ; even the supernatural as well as un- 
natural is dispensed with, while a hiding-place is thought 
to be discoverable within the limits of nature in the dim- 
ness of unintelligible will. And it is curious that the great 
theologian St. Thomas uses the very same illustration as 
Dr. Mill in order to exemplify what is not a miracle : — 

(t Non sufficit ad rationem miraculi si aliquid fiat praeter 
ordinem alicujus naturae particularis ; sic enim aliquis 
miraculum faceret lapidem sursum projiciendo; ex hoc 
autem aliquid dicitur miraculum, quod fit praeter ordinem 
totius naturae creatae, quo sensu Deus solus facit miracula ; 
nobis enim non omnis virtus naturae creatae nota ; cum 
ergo fit aliquid praeter ordinem naturae creatae nobis notae 
per virtutem nobis ignotam, est quidem miraculum quoad 
nos, sed non simpliciter." — In short, relative miracle and 
absolute are perfectly distinct. 



ISSUE OF THE CONTROVERSY. 



163 



Unquestionably the antagonism between theology and 
science is here concentrated. The fundamental idea of 
the latter being nature's uniformity, that of the other the 
notion of interference, the competition of the two theses 
threatens a crisis of no little danger to one of the parties. 
Willingly conceding to the religionist that God acts im- 
mediately on the whole of nature, science insists that He 
acts on particular parts only through His action on every 
other part, i.e. through natural causes ; and that whatever 
fanciful distinctions between His moral and His physical, 
His ordinary or extraordinary, agency may be provisionally C 
made to satisfy our limited faculties and feelings, His 
agency can be rationally conceived only as harmonious and 
one. It may be true that so long as the government of 
the world is considered as external, and its laws the im- 
posed will of a Superior, miracles, however improbable, 
cannot, from the point of view of mere experience, be said • 
to be impossible ; although even so the probability is far 
too remote to form an item in any rational calculation, and 
it would be amusing to know the number of figures which S 
would be required in the denominator of a fraction which ) 
should accurately represent it. But perfect reason is in- 
compatible with capricious deviations ; and in a rational 
view of the universe as the perfect government of an 
immanent God, the exclusion becomes absolute, and mira- 
cles intrinsically absurd. 

But theologians are not silenced, because first, the cause 
has to be pleaded before undiscerning judges whose ideas 
about the universe are not rational ; secondly, because ( 
modern theology has come to be little else than the art 
of rigmarole. Its advocates begin by pointing out to 
pious preoccupation the frightful consequences of speaking 
honestly, as if the grand consideration were not truth, but 
the expediency of uttering it. " The fall fairly-stated deve- 
lopment of the rationalist principle," says Dr. Mill (p. 3), 
" which we find in Strauss — namely, that the miraculous 



164 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

must be fabulous—may prevent the adoption of an inter- 
mediate state of sentiment on the gospel story, in which 
the disease of infidelity exists as really, though not as 
strikingly, as in its extreme manifestation." " The Christian 
miracles," says Mr. Mansel, 1 "can only be judged in con- 
nection with the scheme of which they form a part ; " the 
true question is, not what we should think of a single 
marvellous occurrence, or series of occurrences, at the 
present day, but what we should think if we lived under 
other circumstances — namely, the circumstances and ideas 
of the first Christian age? " Surely," adds the writer after 
much rhetorical amplification, "those who, even in this 
enlightened age, should choose to adopt the hypothesis of a 
natural explanation rather than admit the teacher's own 
testimony concerning himself, would be the legitimate suc- 
cessors of those who under like circumstances declared, 
" He casteth out devils through Beelzebub !" " Miracles,'' 
continues Mr. Mansel, "are an essential part of Chris- 
tianity, and they are possible if a personal God be ad- 
mitted; you, as a Christian, ""must admit a personal 
God ; the notion of God comes through the consciousness: 
nature conceals God ; man reveals Him ; therefore, as 
a Christian, you are bound to admit miracles." Mr. 
Mansel's argument is throughout a begging of the ques- 
tion addressed exclusively to believers ; it does not affect 
those who dispute the required premises ; who deny, for 
r instance, that the true essence of Christianity is necessarily 
v linked with the miraculous, or has really anything to do 
with metaphysical determinations of the nature of Deity ; 2 
or that the notion of Deity in its purest and truest form 
comes from the isolated uneducated consciousness ; or that 
we possess in the gospels the genuine and undoubted self- 
attestation of the miraculous " Performer." The question 

1 Aids to Faith, p. 6. 

2 For if it has, and if its Deity he exclusively theistic, then Origen, Erigena, 
Eccart, nay, several of the writers of the New Testament, may be proved to 
have been no Christians. 



ISSUE OF THE CONTROVERSY. 165 

is not, as Mr. Mansel puts it, what may be deemed pro- 
bable by believers, but what must seem convincing to 
educated reason ; he ought to shew that in every reasonable 
view of the universe, in the theory of Fichte as well as that 
of Jacobi, miracles are probable and possible ; and also that, 
so far as testimony goes, the documentary evidence for the 
gospel miracles is unimpeachable. This latter proof he 
entirely omits ; and the few words of allusion to the sub- 
ject (p. 15, note) are both inadequate and unfair — in- 
adequate, because proffering an alternative which is not 
binding ; and unfair, because to make Bruno Bauer the 
sole or chief representative of the " tendency" theory is a 
mistake, whether designed or unintentional, like substi- 
tuting Thersites for Achilles. 

But the plea varies with the occasion and the audience, 
adapting itself to all modifications and degrees of culture. 
Sometimes, in defiance of reason and experience, the uni- 
verse is claimed as the puppet of divine caprice ; some- 
times, admitting a universal government of order, the C 
distinction is taken between a lower and higher order. To 
ordinary theists, whose God is a mere supernal man, it is 
very common to pretend that God's will, like man's, must 
be assumed to be capricious ; that man's will not being 
easily reducible to a rational calculation of motive, incal- 
culable anomalies are to to be expected in the agency of 
God. 1 Human reason, it is said, goes but little way in 
unravelling creation's mysteries; and then since philoso- 
phers admit their ignorance of causation, of the ultimate 
sources 2 of magnetism, gravitation, etc., a thriving crop 
of miracle is made to grow in the unoccupied background 
of science. Then it is urged that miracles, instead of 
being unnatural, are in the highest degree natural ; that the 
nature immediately surrounding us is an unnatural change- 

1 See Appendix D. 

2 " It is true," says Kant, " that we have no knowledge of ultimate causes; 
but then we know them secundum quid ; we know the practical conditions of 
their action ;" and this, it may he added, is all we really need to know. 



166 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

ling and an impostor ; it is sick, perverted, and degenerate, 
requiring patching and reparation ; " that true miracle is a 
nature coming down out of the world of untroubled har- 
monies into this world of ours which so many discords have 
disturbed; bringing it back again, though but for one 
mysterious prophetic moment, into harmony with the 
higher, and restoring for an instant nature's proper 
naturalness in a mode seemingly indeed unnatural, but 
really natural in the highest degree." 1 — Modern German 
theology is confessedly based on that very theory of 
divine immanency 2 which formed the corner stone of 
the heresies of Spinoza. Since the time when Schleier- 
macher made the memorable declaration that " the idea 
of divine interruptions of nature is obsolete, the interests 
of piety no longer requiring us so to conceive a fact that 
its dependence on God divests it of the conditions be- 
longing to it as a link in the chain of nature," — it has been 
customary with German theologians to make the fullest 
concessions as to the undeviating order of nature considered 
as resting in the very being of God ; but at the same time 
to plead that this order is not to be considered as identical 
with the nature of which we are immediately cognizant ; 
that miracles exist, not as interruptions of order, but as 
parts of a higher or heavenly order, order being itself 
divine. 3 Ullmann, Tholuck, Neander, in this way stop 
short of asserting absolute miracle, and betake themselves 
to the " hoheres naturliches." They have neither the 
courage to adopt the thing unequivocally, nor the candour 
to relinquish it ; and the old ambiguities and evasions con- 
tinue to be revived, like stale feats of legerdemain before 
a fresh audience, to get all the advantages of absolute or 
sterling miracle out of the base coin of relative. Tho- 

1 Trench on the Miracles, p. 15, and Olshausen's Commentary on Matthew, 
p. 259, 4th ed. ; 253, 3rd ed. 

a See Olshausen's Commentary on Matthew, 3rd ed., p. 253 ; 4th ed., 
p. 259; also Schwartz' History of Modern German Theology, pp. 55, 106. 

3 See Olshausen as before, 4th ed. p. 259 ; 3rd ed. p. 254. 



ISSUE OF THE CONTROVERSY. 



167 



luck's definition has been already cited ; — " something 
differing from the known course of nature," — admitting 
the supposed deviation to be only the erroneous estimate 
of human ignorance. Neander's description is as cautious 
and limited as Tholuck's ; "a miracle, negatively speak- 
ing, is something inexplicable by any known law ; posi- ' 
tively, an event bearing on religious interests." 1 So that 
neither on the negative nor the' positive side is there 
any objective reality at all ; the miracle is compounded I 
partly out of human wishes, partly out of human ignorance. 
" Nature is formed," says Neander in continuation, " so as 
to admit the subsequent introduction of higher creative 
powers ;" — again the exploded hypothesis of " preformation !' ' 
Every trick of equivocation is here played off to induce 
us to concede verbally what reader and writer have in 
fact renounced. " The events took place," says Seiler, 
" and are objectively true, although the judgment of the 
historian about them was mistaken; but the writers who 
witnessed these events could not by their erroneous con- 
ceptions take from the truth of the events themselves." 
But then what were the " events," and how can we know 
their nature except from the writer's account? Super- 
naturalists here repeat the device of rationalism by re- 
ducing the quantum of the miraculous, and by excogitating 
a partly natural explanation. The miracle of raising 
the widow's son is explained by Seiler from the supposed 
foreknowledge of Jesus that it was a case of suspended 
animation. Lucke, after admitting the miraculous resur- 
rection, hesitates about the miraculous nature of the re- 
suscitated body, because a spiritual being could not eat and 
drink, or have really had the imprint of the nails, etc. 
Neander tones down the wine of Cana into a kind of full- 
bodied mineral water ; he makes as many nice distinctions 
in regard to this water as the various Protestant confessions 
did in regard to the eucharistic wine; adverting to cer- 

1 Life of Jesus, Bonn's edition, p. 136. 



168 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

tain springs mentioned by Theopompus and Theophrastus 
as producing water with vinous properties; so that the 
supernatural aspect is in a manner softened, and belief 
assisted to its object by a series of natural gradations. But 
it is not so easy thus to commend the unpalatable draught 
by dissolving it in a menstruum of the natural ; they who 
require miracles must make up their minds to swallow 

i the beverage undiluted, and to drink it to the dregs. Dr. 
Trench would fain help us to the digestion of miracle by 
referring to the action of salt on animal substances ; to the 
cross-action of fasts and festivals in the church calendar ; 
to comets ; to the unexplained agency of will ; to any- 
thing, in short, which is at the same time admitted and 
anomalous ; although the very process through which we 
are thus helped to a comprehension of miracle by means 
of comets, magnetism, 1 or other known agencies implies a 

./ partial abandonment of faith, while the evident attempt 
at evasion jeopardises the whole. And indeed, as Mr. 
Mansel remarks, 2 the probability of the alleged marvel 
having been caused by some unknown action of natural 
agents diminishes in proportion to the progress of science, 
as the limits of unknown agency become smaller. The 
natural acceleration process adopted from Augustin by 
Dr. Trench and others in regard to the miracle of Cana, 
as if Christ only anticipated the slow process by which wine 
is elaborated from the grape, is a forced analogy ; for Christ 
obviously used no such means as those employed in nature, 
and the apologetic effort to explain only betrays the latent 
distrust and increasing incredulity of the expounder. " Who 
does not see," says Dr. Schwartz, 3 "when the miraculous 
events of Christ's baptism are explained as a vision, and 
the peremptory 77S77 o£a of buried Lazarus is passed over 
as inconclusive as to the reality of his death, that this at- 
tempted naturalization of miracle is a virtual repudiation 

1 See Olshausen, as above, pp. 260, 267, 296. 2 Aids to Faith, p. 13, 14. 
8 Neueste Theologie, pp. 126, 136. 



ISSUE OF THE CONTROVERSY. 169 

of it? Bat then why, at the very moment when virtu- 
ally repudiating', affect so much virtuous indignation, 
such a superfluity of zeal in its defence? 1 Why should 
Dr. Trench insist on having a miracle to certify to his con- 
science the divinity as well as goodness of a given doctrine, 
when admitting his inability to tell, except through the 
testimony of his conscience, whether in accepting the 
miracle he may not after all be " paving the way of Anti- 
christ" by mistaking the diabolical for the divine? 2 Why 
such infinite pains to multiply the bye-ways of escape, 
as where the story of the temptation, or that about the 
money in the fish's mouth, are declared to be allego- 
rical ; the stilling the storm an influence exerted over the 
apostles' minds ; Liicke winding up the matter by recom- 
mending a pious and patient suspension of judgment as to 
the circumstances until it pleases God by further develop- 
ments of Christian thought to render them intelligible ? 
Patience and silence are doubtless better alternatives than 
wine and water miracles, or other indirect artifices of quali- 
fication or denial ; 3 for there can be no logical half-way 
house between absurdity and reason; there is only the 

1 Liicke, in his 2nd edition, explains the healing of the nobleman's son as 
a prophetic foreknowledge of his recovery ; in his 3rd edition he has recourse 
to animal magnetism ; so that Baur is led to ask how many editions of the 
celebrated "Commentary" shall we have to outlive until we see the miracle 
candidly accepted as it is meant ? 

2 See Notes on Miracles, pp. 22, 24, 26. It is evident from these passages 
that Dr. Trench is a full believer in the black art. Mr. Mansel, too, alludes 
significantly to "other agency" (Aids to Faith, p. 32). See also Olshausen's 
Commentary on Matt. viii. pp. 262, 297, where it is admitted that the seeming 
miracle may, after all, be nothing more than a device of an ambassador of the 
pit. But then why revert to so bewildering a test when the message must be 
accepted or rejected antecedently to the presentation of the supposed creden- 
tials ; and how can the hallucinations of the vulgar about witchcraft excite 
astonishment when the same belief is thus paraded by enlightened churchmen ? 

3 Pomponatius explains by the hypothesis of "preformation" the success 
of the people of Aquileia in getting fine weather by praying for it. Bousseau, 
however, better treats the success of the Bishop of Annecy in extinguishing a 
fire by means of prayer, when he says : " J'avais vu l'Eveque en priere, et 
durant son priere j'avais vu le vent changer, et meme tres a, propos ; voila 
ce que je pouvais dire et certifier; mais, que l'un de ces deux choses fut la 
cause de 1' autre, voila ce que je ne devais pas attester, parceque je ne pouvais 
pas le savoir." 



170 SPECIAL ANTECEDENTS. 

alternative. The translator of Seller's " Biblical Herme- 
neutics" (p. 474) may well ask, " If the Bible be accepted 
as true in essentials only, who is to decide on the essentials, 
or to fix the limits of mis-statement ; if the Evangelists 
were in error in their accounts of the angel who appeared 
to Zacharias, or to the woman at the sepulchre, what ground 
have we for believing they were not mistaken throughout, 
e.g. as to the miraculous circumstances attending the birth, 
life, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Redeemer?" 
Yet the only available answer to Strauss on one side and 
orthodoxy on the other is the same strain of halting con- 
cession and prevarication which among philosophical divines 
pervades the whole treatment of religious subjects. At one 
time paradoxical terms 1 or balanced contradictory proposi- 
tions 2 jar upon the ear with abrupt and startling effect ; 
at another the conventional jargon of an uncouth mysticism 
comes recommended to the ear by all the witchery of melli- 
fluous but unmeaning language — 

In notes with many a winding bout 
Of linked sweetness long drawn out, 
"With wanton heed and giddy cunning, 
The melting voice through mazes running — 

such as may be met with abundantly in any of our modern 
popular divines, but which it would be tedious and nauseous 
to quote. 3 Theology thus becomes the art of ingenious 
quibbling, a very Proteus of language, whom it is im- 
possible effectually to grasp, and who after a thousand 
baffling transformations finally vanishes like the Homeric 
favourites of the gods in misty obscurity. 

1 For example, " theoanthropology," "infinite personality," etc. etc. 

2 Thus Dean Trench says : " The laws of nature are the very working of 
the continuous will of God excluding all wilfulness ;" and yet "miracles are 
instances of a lower law neutralised and for a time put out of working by a 
higher" (Notes on Miracles, pp. 10 and 16). But then what becomes of the 
pretended " higher law" in the intervals of its action; what is it in fact but 
wilful and capricious interference ? 

3 Dr. Schwartz, in his Neueste Theologie, pp. 252, 554, gives several speci- 
mens of what he terms the "balancing or shifting theology," which means the 
art of saying a thing without seeming to say it ; of admitting the premises and 

(' wrangling with the conclusion ; in short, of adroitly pandering to the infatua- 
tion of those whose sole desire is mystification. 



PAET III, 

INTEBENCES OF THE TUBINGEN CRITICISM. 



The Latest Phase of Supernaturalism. 

To convince men against their will is proverbially diffi- 
cult. Obstinacy changes weakness into strength, absurdities 
into " principles." In the face of a predetermination to 
insist on the infallibility and divinity of a certain book, it 
were vain to point to errors or even moral deformities in it. 
These very deformities, the very cruelties and other start- 
ling anomalies of the Old Testament, amuse, nay delight 
the infatuated admirer. Opportunities of self-deception are 
never wanting. We are told about the writer's candour, 
the benefits of warning example, the necessities of divine 
chastisement, the general economy of divine education ; in 
short, all kinds of arbitrary assumptions as to "the divine," 
which it is as difficult to refute as it is rationally to es- 
tablish. Objections to particular statements or precepts 
meet the reply that special applications must be regulated 
by analogy ; 1 in answer to palpable inconsistencies and 
incongruities it is urged that the great merit of the Bible 
is its boundless variety, its dealing with the same spiritual 
truths from different points of view, and that, after all, the 
same differences and anomalies are discoverable in nature. 2 
In vain you think to silence the objector by appealing to 
common sense and victoriously grappling with details ; by 

1 Arnold's Life, Letter 37, vol. i. chap. 6. 

2 Duke of Argyle's address to the National Bible Society of Scotland. — 
Times, Jan. 22, 1863. 



172 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

shewing the astronomy, the geography, the chronology, 
the geology, the arithmetical details, to be fanciful and 
faulty : all these faults, it is said, were known before ; and 
an unexpected barrier presents itself in an alleged impalpa- 
ble essence, a nucleus or ideal basis of inspiration, after all 
the solid constituents of the theory have avowedly crumbled 
into ruin. All the hairs in the horse's tail have disappeared, 
but he must not be admitted to be tail-less; the missing es- 
sence is not in the kitchen, the drawing-room, or the attic, 
yet somewhere in the house it must be; and thus all theology 
becomes an illogical suspense between the conclusion and the 
premises; the literalist relents, but the mystical spiritualist 
is firm, and the true " Word" in Scripture remains unim- 
peached by literary and historical refutation. The husk 
is gone, but an invisible kernel maintains the position ; 
although in the many pious platitudes passing current on 
the subject no real meaning be discernible except the broad 
inferences of natural morality and providential superin- 
tendence, the general teleological purpose which we believe 
to be ever tending to good in its majestic passage through 
the ages, although ourselves far too limited in faculty to 
identify its action in special cases, or to make it directly 
responsible for particular occurrences or books. 

In the foregoing pages an attempt has been made to shew 
how — in spite of the general tendencies of free sentiment — 
the postulate of absolute infallibility was allowed after the 
Keformation to settle down upon the Bible; and how by 
degrees, as errors were detected, and science obtruded its dis- 
coveries, the stringency of the theory gave way, the notion 
of inspiration became elastic, and reason, in its two forms 
of empiricism and idealism, 1 was summoned to assist a 
vacillating faith, first by authenticating the revelation 
generally by external evidence, then by defending at least 
so much of it as could be shewn to agree with the internal 
voice of conscience. But reason, once allowed an entrance, 

1 That is, as applied in the Baconian and Cartesian philosophies. 



THE LATEST PHASE OF SUPERNATURALISM. 173 

could no longer be limited to the part of servant. The 
method of " rational supernaturalism," which implicitly 
accepted the message after testing the credentials of the 
messenger, eventually led to a juster appreciation of the 
nature of the subject and of the limits and value of testi- 
mony ; and " supernatural rationalism," which sifted the 
message itself, and accepted it as revelation only so far 
as it appeared rational and right, tended to subvert the 
very notion of the supernatural, — to transfer the whole 
matter to the dominion of reason, and to exhibit to every 
impartial mind the real basis of revelation in nature. 1 The 
example of distinguishing the rational from the non-essential 
was set by Spinoza, who, appealing to the " inner light," 
proposed to separate from the mass of Scripture what he 
called the "pure Word," corresponding to the divine law 
written in the heart ; and so the Socinians and Arminians, 
Quakers and Swedenborgians, all in different ways con- 
trived to elevate the spirit above the letter, to subordinate 
the external rule to the internal intuitions. The barrier 
to free criticism was thus virtually removed ; and it 
was but a seeming renewal of it, in a form calculated by 
its author to promote rather than to intercept the reconcili- 
ation of new ideas and old, when Schleiermacher under- 
took to plead the cause of inspiration in a modified form 
by asserting the superior dignity and authority of the 

1 Both of these forms of qualified rationalism, of which the one was but 
little more than the necessary issue and corollary of the other, were put forth 
by Leibnitz and by Lessing; by the latter in his " Essay on the Education of 
the Human Eace," and in the observations appended to the "Wolfenbiittel 
Fragments, p. 417 (see too the Fragment, "Ueber die Entstehuag der geoffen- 
barten Eeligion," Works, Lachmann's ed. vol. ii. part 2, p. 247) ; by the 
former in his Theodicee. Thus where in section 29 of the " Discours sur la 
conformite," etc., Leibnitz says, "Les motifs de credibilite justifient une fois 
pour toutes l'autorite de la sainte ecriture devant le tribunal de la raison, 
afin que la raison lui cede dans la suite comme a une nouvelle lumiere, et 
lui sacrifie toutes ses vraisemblances," this is "rational supernaturalism;" 
but when in the Preface to the Theodicee he says, " Je fais seulement voir 
comment Jesus Christ acheva de faire passer la religion naturelle en loi, et de 
lui donner l'autorite d'un dogme public," he takes the ground of super- 
natural rationalism, which is indeed nothing more than pure rationalism 
ennobled by the general idea of providential guidance and illumination. 



174 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

books of the New Testament on the ground of their com- 
parative antiquity, and the consequent purity and accuracy 
of the witness borne by them to original Christian truth. 
The plea was little more than that of authenticity, serving 
in fact only to put that postulate more distinctly on its 
trial : in any other view it was irrelevant, since first at- 
tempts are naturally imperfect, and these books not being 
Christianity itself, but only the records of its foundation — 
more or less imperfect attempts to express its meaning, — 
to make them the type and pattern for all succeeding times 
was like setting up the designs of Cimabue as the universal 
standard of art, or seeking the ideal of human beauty in 
the undeveloped forms of childhood. 

But supernatural-rationalism was after all only half 
rational ; in most of its current forms, whether based on 
reason, sentiment, or conscience, it continued to claim for 
the spiritual essence of Scripture the same exceptional pre- 
eminence as a revelation which had before been ascribed 
to the whole. And it was impossible to deny the postulate 
of Leibnitz and Lessing as to a certain reality and truth in 
all phases of opinion and institution ; or on the other hand 
that all truth must be held to be divine, and that con- 
sequently all formularies and establishments are to be 
viewed as successive portions of a Providential education. 
"The necessity of a positive religion, by which natural 
religion is modified according to special times and places, 
I call its inner truth," said Lessing; 1 and Kant, too, ad- 
mitted in a certain sense a divine prerogative in established 
doctrines and churches, which, although really meaning no 
more than the. analogous concession of Spinoza, enabled 
him to speak the language of supernaturalism. And so old 
pretensions revived in new forms. Although it was no 
longer said that the religious ideas are externally origi- 
nated independently of reason, it was still urged that 
reason itself operates only under divine guidance and 

1 Entstehung der geoffenbarten Eeligion, Works, vol. ii. part 2, p. 247. 



THE LATEST PHASE OF SUPERNATURALISM. 175 

tuition ; and though many of the more distinguished 
theologians, as Schleiermacher and Rothe, exercised to a 
certain extent a right of criticism in separating what they 
held to be divine and true from the transitory and fallacious, 
the claim was often indiscriminately made with a view to 
the wholesale reassertion of traditional conventionalisms; in 
entire disregard of the obvious inference that if the sugges- 
tions of nature and reason be viewed as divine, the idea 
cannot be limited to one creed or nation, but must be 
impartially extended to all. And then the renewed belief 
in immanency, the memorable restoration of divinity to 
nature, caused a very general revival of the illusions 
which the Baconian philosophy had contributed to dissipate. 
There are many to whom clear ideas, especially in religious 
matters, are unsatisfying and repulsive ; minds to which 
the jargon of ambiguous phrases is almost a necessity. 
The ideal or "Romantic" movement of the last century, 
salutary and prolific as it was in the hands of Herder or 
Schelling, produced many an ignoble caricature, many a 
morbid aberration in art, literature, and religion. It pre- 
cipitated undisciplined minds into a fantastic dreaming 
which confounded the limits of the knowable, and while 
mystifying matters properly appertaining to science, en- 
couraged the pretensions of the charlatan in exhibiting the 
really mysterious as something plain and palpable to bodily 
sense. The processes of reason were found to be too slow 
to satisfy superstitious impatience; scepticism oscillated 
round to extravagant belief, and imaginative unreason 
allowed itself to be led helplessly through many mazes of 
mediaeval dilettantism into masked or avowed Catholicism. 
For when stultification has proceeded certain lengths, the 
Roman Church unfailingly steps in to give the coup-de- 
grace. 

The Biblical problem, however usefully illustrated by 
the philosophical psychologist, was especially liable to be 
obscured by the hazy lucubrations of the mystic. A 



176 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

haunted house is not the place for quiet study; and so 
long as the phantom of supernaturalism is allowed to haunt 
the problem of Scripture interpretation, it can never be 
dealt with in a really impartial spirit. Superstitious 
timidity still insists on something in the inspired volume 
too high and holy to be violated by the profane gaze of 
mortal curiosity. " Impartiality/' says Dr. Arnold/ "is 
inconsistent with religious veneration ; in such a case 
neutrality is almost equivalent to hostility." And yet 
without neutrality what is the worth of criticism; how 
pursue abstruse investigations with effect under menaces 
of the temporal penalties of heresy and the eternal con- 
sequences of sin ? It used to be said that Mr. O'Connell, 
like Homer, used a double language — one strain adapted 
to Irish tastes, another to the House of Commons. Ra- 
tionalist and supernaturalist utterances are similarly ba- 
lanced and apportioned. We are told 2 that " Dr. Arnold 
had a remarkable, a wonderful discernment for the divine, 
as incorporated in the human element of Scripture; the 
careful separation of the two, so that each should be subject 
to its own laws, being the grand principle of his exegesis. 
He approached the human side of the Bible in the same 
spirit and with the same methods as he did Thucydides. 
Language, history, etc., he judged according to established 
rules, substantiating the general veracity of Scripture even 
amid occasional inaccuracies of detail, and proposing for 
his especial end the reproduction in familiar language of the 
exact modes of thinking, feeling, and acting, which pre- 
vailed in the past But was this all? Is the Bible 

but a common book, recording indeed more remarkable 
occurrences, but in itself possessed of no higher authority 
than that of a mere trustworthy historian ? Nothing could 
be farther from Dr. Arnold's feeling ; in the Bible he found 
and acknowledged an oracle of God — a positive and super- 
natural revelation made to man, an immediate inspiration 

1 life of Dr. Arnold, vol. ii. pp. 59, 60. 2 Ibid., vol. i. p. 177. 



THE LATEST PHASE OF SUPERNATURALISM. 177 

of the Spirit. No conviction was more deeply seated in 
his nature ; and this placed an impassable gulf between him 
and all rationalizing divines." " But," adds the biographer, 
"any accurate or precise theory of inspiration Arnold had •? 
not ; and had he been asked to give one, I think he would ■ 
have answered that the subject did not admit of one." 

On the basis of the same hazy theory, the same hybrid 
mixture of the rational and irrational, it has recently been 
said that " the traditional character of the early part of the 
Bible history does not in the smallest degree invalidate its 
truth as a revelation. The influence of God's spirit in 
man is necessarily filtered through the imperfect media of 
the human spirit, and passes into sacred history and litera- 
ture exactly in the same way and with no greater propor- 
tional advantages of external machinery than are reserved 
for other influences which agitate less deeply the depths of 
the human heart or conscience in what is called profane 
history or literature. But does this imply that we are 
entirely to change the attitude of our minds in regard to 
the narrative, that we are no longer to consider it a medium 
of revelation, to distrust the supernatural basis, the guiding 
hand and voice of God, the memory of a constant com- 
munion with Him which moulds the whole Scripture his- 
tory? The numerical statements are exaggerated; of 
course tradition is careless as to numbers. Doubtless it 
is so ; but is that to shake our faith in the great lines of 
cause and effect, in the substantial truth of God's method 
for turning a pariah caste of cringing slaves into a nation 
of proud and violent warriors?" 1 Such are the hollow 

1 These remarks are extracted from the " Spectator" newspaper of Novem- 
ber 8th, 1862. The following is another example of the same kind, taken 
from the same newspaper of January 24th, 1863, p. 1560 : " When we first 
realize the liability to error in the human media of revelation, nay that man 
would not be a free and living being if he failed to colour with partial affections 
and local habits of thought the eternal thought of God, we are apt to despair 
of penetrating through the human disguise to any absolute reality at all. 
Once grasp the truth that God can make himself known to man by his acta 
through all the uncertainties of human evidence and the changeful prejudices 
of life, — that the divine revelation which ended in the incarnation actually 

12 



178 



TUBINGEN RESULTS. 



} 



artifices of self-stultifying* ingenuity, the improved theo- 
logical way of saying " no," when it is inconvenient and 
indecorous to say " yes." " Nature is divine," says philo- 
sophy ; theology repeats — " the natural is supernatural," — 
veiling inconsistency in rhetoric, and making prolixity 
instead of brevity the soul of wit. The voices of Esau and 
Jacob are skilfully blended, and each rational utterance is 
guarded by one of different intonation, just as the members 
of certain Catholic confraternities are required to walk in 
pairs, and not to venture out in public without the watch- 
ful superintendence of an unimpeachable associate. 

The only honest resource is to sever incompatible alterna- 
tives ; either to abdicate reason, or to side with scientific criti- 
cism. Instead of hazarding assumptions proving too much, 
as applying to the Koran or Zendavesta as well as the Bible, 
and which, consistently held, would make falsehood itself 
appear as truth, the commonest perceptions as revelations, 
we must first follow out the historical question as to truth 
before venturing to pronounce about divinity. To bridge 
over conventional ideas, and help the warped and jaded 
faculties a little onward towards a clearer view of the mat- 
ter, a recent author 1 suggests that revelation, when first 
given, could not have been fully understood ; that in order 
to become the common property of mankind it had to be 

did trace an outline of the divine mind and character on the uncertain surface 
of human life, gleaming through the clouds of our passions and errors with a 
constant and continually expanding meaning, till the full sun burst out in 
Christ, — to any one who has really grasped this," etc., etc. "Divine truth 
could not he divine truth if it did not coalesce closely with what is strictly 
human ; and if we could absolutely discriminate the two at pleasure, it would 
be an absolute proof that man's life was not interwoven with God's. That 
we cannot do so, but can only say, on the whole without a doubt, that God 
and Christ have made themselves felt as the controlling powers of human 
history, here, as we think, through a cloud, — there, as we hope, in naked 
eternal truth, is the great lesson of the present day." But those who indulge 
in this sort of verbiage forget that the same plea justifies the inspiration of the 
Koran, the Vedas, the Greek philosophers and poets ; that it led Lessing 
himself to the avowal that " all positive religions are alike true and alike 
false." (Entstehung der geoffenoarten Eeligion, vol. ii. part 2, p. 242 
Lachmann.) 

1 Dr. Richard Rothe— Zur Dogmatik, p. 122. 



THE LATEST PHASE OF SUPERNATURALTSM. 



179 



consigned to the keeping of tradition, to be secured and 
fixed by writing ; then traditions and writings were to be 
authenticated and purified from the perversions and cor- 
ruptions to which they were exposed in a long course of 
transmission ; to attain its end too the revelation ought of 
course to be properly comprehended, and this was possible 
only to the vision of the human soul as educated by reve- 
lation, an education attainable by feeble and sinful man 
only through a course of gradual approximation. And so 
old language leads on to new ideas, and by means of 
studied phrases we get at last to the proper work of theo- 
logical criticism, which looks to progressive discovery, and 
while allowing all truth to be divine, claims the equally 
divine right of science in interpreting and sifting it. 

Modern science grew up timidly under church sufferance ; 
but there were limits to this sufferance ; and Bruno, Vanini, 
and Servetus paid the penalty of their lives for obtruding 
free opinion upon forbidden ground. Bacon and Descartes 
were enabled to reconcile the rights of religion and science 
only by adopting the peremptory nominalistic severance of 
the two departments. Spinoza continued the distinction, 
while silently transferring the prerogatives of religion to 
philosophy, and arbitrarily erasing from the true Scripture 
4i essence" all those irrational matters and marks which for 
the very reason that they are strange and paradoxical are 
often the most valued by ordinary Christians. His great 
aim was to assert the right of free speech and free thought ; 
and the only way of doing so successfully at the time 
seemed to be to keep up the idea of an entire independency 
and separation between the religion of establishment and 
the religion of philosophy, treating the former as dealing 
exclusively with practice, and claiming for the latter alone 
the rights of free enquiry. But it was impossible for ever 
to uphold an unreal and unnatural distinction. Only 
under circumstances which have long ceased was it 
possible to justify an artificially drawn line between two 



180 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

assumed castes or classes of mankind ; to treat one as the 
proper subject of pious fable and theological manipulation, 
the other as sole depository of enquiry and truth. Equally 
vain was the attempt to draw a satisfactory line of de- 
marcation as to the Scripture contents ; since what edifies 
one may be superfluous or hurtful to others ; and the dis- 
tinction assumes what elsewhere Spinoza denies, 1 that false- 
hood may be as effectual as truth in training men to the 
practice of virtue. Nor is it consistent with the true spirit 
of philosophy to countenance an organization of deceit, or 
to sit contentedly acquiescent in presence of what is known 
to be misleading. Spinoza himself led the way in shewing 
how the Bible contents might be made amenable to scien- 
tific treatment, and how, after limiting belief to the require- 
ments of cultivated intelligence, imaginative excrescences 
of idea or diction might be not only eliminated but ex- 
plained. For even refutation becomes complete only when 
to mere denial explanation is superadded. What if, instead 
of merely challenging certain Bible details as absurd or 
erroneous, we go on to shew how the error arose, and 
generally to furnish an intelligible explanation of the cir- 
cumstances of its origin? Suppose that through a wider 
survey and comparison of ancient thought and literature, 
we are enabled to discern with surer insight the exact 
meaning of traditional accounts, the mode of their forma- 
tion, the peculiar motives and circumstances of the writers, 
etc. etc. It may still be possible even under these circum- 
stances for ingenious advocacy to ape obsolete ideas and 
S language ; but it must become more and more difficult to 
do so consistently with any feeling of decency or self- 
respect ; the necessity of unambiguously imparting the 
discoveries of learning will be increasingly felt ; and men, 
desisting from vain efforts to reconcile the irreconcileable 
by sophistical expedients, will address themselves more and 
more plainly to the reason of their hearers. Half measures 

1 Letter 19th to Oldenburg 



THE LATEST PHASE OF SUPERNATUEALISM. 181 

will be seen to be untenable, and there will remain only 
the choice between a blind submission to absurdity and 
active research. The doctrinal symbolism and figurative 
language of antiquity have long been made the proper 
subjects of philosophical investigation. They are no longer 
matters to be either childishly believed or contemptuously 
rejected, but to be carefully studied. IS" or can human reason 
be denied the general right of adjudicating as to the worth 
and purport of what is distinctly seen to be her own work. 
If already the organic structure of plants and animals lies 
unfolded to her gaze ; if undismayed she measures the 
elemental forces and the courses of the heavenly bodies, 
exploring with impunity all other works of conscious 
agency, the machinery of government and law, the crea- 
tions of philosophy and art, it will be impossible for 
religion alone to resist the inroads of discovery, and to 
maintain for ever an exceptional incognito. Not, indeed, 
to all religion has the restriction been extended ; we are 
permitted to follow the characteristics and causes of Indian 
and Persian worship ; to scrutinize the genealogies of the 
Olympian gods, and to trace the symptoms of natural 
growth through the dark labyrinths of Teutonic or Scan- 
dinavian legend. Why then, after so boldly measuring in 
these instances the ideas of former ages, and claiming all 
their obscurities as matter for research, should mistaken 
zeal or conceited infatuation oppose an insurmountable 
barrier to the scrutiny of "our own ; or insist that the fruit 
which lies ripe and as if but just dissevered from its 
unmistakeable antecedents before our feet, grew in the 
far-off gardens of the Hesperides, or fell directly and 
sup ernatur ally from the sky ? x 

The Real Deficiencies of Strauss. 

A conviction of nature's constancy and order was the 
necessary preliminary to a scientific treatment of history. 

1 See Strauss, Glaubenslehre vol. i. p. 351 



182 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

For history ends where miracles begin ; history would 
exhibit events in an intelligible order of connection and 
succession ; whereas miracle, denying any natural con- 
nection, consigns them to unintelligible chaos. But a mere 
repudiation of the miraculous islao final result. Negation 
may be the first step to discovery, and doubt is the neces- 
sary precursor of science. But with Strauss the main 
result was historic doubt, not historic certainty. To go 
farther a broader basis of fact was required, — a wider sur- 
vey of instances. Strauss himself by no means admitted 
the imputation as to the destructive tendencies of his 
criticism. On the contrary he shewed in repeated ex- 
amples how the miserable puerilities of supernaturalistic 
and rationalistic interpreters were rapidly undermining the 
faith of all, except the blindly superstitious, in the worth 
and dignity of the Bible ; how we retain true historical es- 
sentials in the vivid impressions entertained by the first Chris- 
tians as to their Founder, as represented in his accredited 
biography ; and how the mythical theory alone, while 
sacrificing a false semblance of pragmatical history, rescues 
the true meaning and spirit of the writers against the far- 
fetched shifts and degrading comments suggested by ig- 
norance of their language and modes of thinking. Alluding 
to Dr. Steudel in his " Streitschriften," he compares the 
efforts of pragmatical apologists to the mistaken zeal of 
those who in their eagerness to save the old clothes aban- 
doned what was really valuable to the flames. Yet the 
general tendency to resolve the narrative into the unreal 
envelopment of an idea certainly went far to countenance 
the obnoxious charge ; especially if this residuary idea be 
limited to the single item of the so-styled dogmatical im- 
port of the life of Jesus. The great though inevitable 
defect of the criticism of Strauss was its negative character. 
Incidentally we do get very important positive information 
as to the ideal origin of many Scripture stories, and become 
initiated in all the minutest details of the history of Bible 



THE REAL DEFICIENCIES OF STRAUSS. 183 

exegesis ; still the main inference is that the authorship of 
the New Testament is problematical, its narratives un- 
reliable and contradictory. And this negation affects not 
only narratives which are themselves unquestionably mythi- 
cal, but other accounts of a less certain character happening 
to be more or less intimately connected with them. It is 
impossible, says the author, in the absence of extrinsic 
testimony, to establish a sure boundary, or to separate as 
historically sound certain portions of a narrative from other 
connected statements proved to be mythically infected. ' 
For although the evidence from connection is not conclu- 
sive, still it must breed suspicion, and in the absence 
of collateral attestation induces a distrust of the whole. 
Moreover, it is extremely difficult in practice to distinguish 
true mythi, or stories destitute of any basis of fact, from 
others having a possibly historical basis ; the so-called . 
" criteria" are uncertain, and the only result is to make us 
hesitate as to narratives containing miraculous or other 
suspicious circumstances. This result, the only possible 
one at the time when rival inconclusive theories as to the 
• literary problem neutralized each other, was but the 
matured expression of the same sceptical uncertainty which, 
perversely suppressed by the Harmonists, lay at the root of 
the so-called " abstract criticism;" since it was only the 
growing doubt as to the authenticity of the writings sug- 
gested by their internal discrepancies which occasioned 
those laboured and far-fetched guesses as to their origin. 
Strauss only brought out this scepticism more prominently ; 
and his statement was the more impressive because stand- 
ing isolated and severed from the literary part of the ques- 
tion. So that what now appears as a defect in the "Leben 
Jesu," constituted at the time a large part of its appro- 
priateness and value. A great advantage was gained by 
the distinct and energetic utterance of the negative view 
in removing prepossession, and preparing the emancipated 
judgment for a fuller and more impartial consideration of the 



184 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

whole subject. All new beginnings in philosophy spring 
from negation and doubt ; — from lowered pretentions, the 
extinguishment of false lights, and the abandonment of 
ungrounded hopes. The first step from ignorance to know- 
ledge is knowledge of our ignorance. Only when the 
ground has been effectually cleared and the mirage of 
prejudice destroyed, can we see our way to surer truth. 
And if this truth turn out to be less ample than that sug- 
gested by imagination, it is still matter for self-congratula- 
tion that we grasp a limited reality instead of a showy 
dream. ''Trace carefully," says Ernest Renan, 1 "the 
march of criticism since the Renaissance, and you will find 
l it ever replacing the superstitions of ignorance with solid 
scientific acquirements and truer images of the past. Each 
step on the fatal path seems destructive and funereal ; yet 
not one of the seemingly dethroned deities but received 
from its ostensible destroyer more legitimate titles of adora- 
tion. The false Aristotle was displaced, but only to make 
way for the true ; Plato, taught as a revelation in Florence, 
regained his rightful glory only when descending to his 
proper rank as a philosopher ; Homer, apparently thrust 
from his pedestal of fame by Wolf, reassumed more than 
his original importance by becoming the impersonal ex- 
pression and representative of the aggregate genius of 
Greece ; and primitive history in general, when studied in 
an enlarged spirit apart from a coarse undiscriminating 
realism, forfeited its literal veracity only to become 
infinitely more significant and instructive." He might 
have added that the whole evolution of modern phi- 
losophy has been a process of disintegration and self- 
renewal ; throwing off many vain pretensions in the course 
of its development, yet eventually establishing a more 
solid though less ambitious edifice on the ruin of former 
systems. 

Strauss's great merit consists in the negative work 

1 Etudes d'Histoire Keligieuse, p. 135. 



THE REAL DEFICIENCIES OF STRAUSS. 185 

contributed by hiiii towards the reconstruction of theo- 
logy ; and it was the fitness of the "Leben Jesu" to 
accomplish the intellectual iconoclasm so often needed in 
the progress of science which provoked so much odium ; 
since nothing irritates so much as to be convicted of ig- 
norance as to matters confidently believed to be already ' 
sufficiently and fully known. But Strauss's criticism was 
defective not merely because it was negative in quality, but 
because it reached only one side of the general subject. It 
was a criticism of the events, not of the records. The 
origin and mutual relation of the gospels had been already 
so long and to all appearance so uselessly canvassed, that 
it seemed for the time hopeless to look to anything except 
internal indications. Yet the two considerations act and 
react on each other. Our estimate of the events depends 
in great measure on the notion formed as to the records, 
and the latter on the former. The two enquiries are 
usually blended, although one for the time may be made 
more emphatically conspicuous. The Harmonists can- 
celled the literary discrepancies in order to form the con- ( 
tents into a history. Suppressing incipient doubt as to the ( 
records, they insisted on forcing contradictory facts into 
unnatural agreement. "With the abstract critics on the 
other hand, a more impartial appreciation of variations and 
contradictions in the reported facts engendered anxious and 
laborious enquiries as to the nature and relations of the 
records : admitting the discrepancies, they endeavoured by 
a process of substraction and elimination to evolve the 
literary essence or gospel original. Strauss, calling for a 
reconsideration of the specific data of the Harmonist, drew 
an opposite conclusion and cancelled the history ; and finally, 
the literary element, omitted by Strauss, was restored by 
the historical critic, who drew positive inferences from the 
very discordances which in Strauss had been the basis of 
mere negation. The Harmonists had often been obliged to 
consider historical probability for the purposes of literary 



186 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

collocation ; on the other hand, the historical critic must 
form some hypothesis as to the order and origin of the 
writings, and cannot advance a step until he has more or 
less successfully achieved this preliminary task. All, how- 
ever, that Strauss found it necessary to do in this respect 
was negative — i.e. to, see that no absolute impediment from 
external evidence precluded the application of his general 
theory. It was necessary to meet the obvious objection to 
the application of the mythical principle arising from the 
supposed cotemporary, or nearly cotemporary, character of 
the writings. This Strauss to a certain extent did ; shewing 
that no satisfactory external testimony proves the canonical 
gospels to have existed until fifty or sixty years after the 
date of the events. But Ullmann, Tholuck, etc., not un- 
reasonably complained that Strauss's treatment of this 
problem was inadequate and disproportioned to its intrinsic 
importance; that he disposed of it in a few pages, assuming 
the post-apostolic origin which he ought to have proved, 
and moreover making concessions as to "Luke" incon- 
sistent with its mythical character. But on the other hand 
the distinct view of the historical contradictions eliminated 
by Strauss was undoubtedly the best preparation for further 
enquiry into the writings. In fact the contents, or internal 
phenomena of the writings, are the objective data which 
must be mainly dealt with in all enquiry into their origin, and 
which cannot be abandoned without the risk of being end- 
lessly led astray by random conjecture. The negative 
results of internal evidence, i.e. that these accounts, being 
self-contradictory and inconsistent, could not have emanated 
from cotemporaries and eye-witnesses, led directly to the 
question from whom then, and under what circumstances, 
did they originate ? In the same way that a modification 
of the notion of inspiration was the necessary preliminary 
to all criticism, so the conviction impressed by the "Leben 
Jesu" of the unhistorical character of the reported facts 
evinced the necessity of a renewed criticism of the records. 



THE LITERARY PURPOSE. 



187 



Discovery of a Clue to Positive Criticism in the Literary 
Purpose. 

There was also another inevitable defect in the " Leben 
Jesu," leading away from concrete views of history. Not 
only was the biography of Jesns reduced by its application 
to a scanty and impalpable outline, but there was some- 
thing intangible and unreal in its very nature. The dis- 
tinguishing characteristic of mythus is insensible growth, 
unconscious development ; indeed the mythical theory was 
only a more refined and scientific form of the old hypo- 
thesis of tradition, derived from Gieseler, Herder, and Wolf. 
But mythus has many varieties, and, as shewn by Ull- 
mann, 1 occurs in many combinations. Now, the most 
superficial consideration of the gospels suffices to shew 
that design must have had some share in their formation f 
that they are no mere mechanical registries of tradition ; 
that very varied circumstances and influences, conscious as 
well as unconscious, were concerned in their construction ; 
so that we have still to ask not merely what the narrative 
tells, but what relation the tale bears to the individual 
minds through which it passed. The next step in criticism 
was therefore to investigate this relation; to look narrowly 
to evidences of conscious purpose in the several writings, 
and, admitting the mythical nature of a large portion of 
their contents, to restore to them their spontaneous cha- 
racter as literary compositions. The deficiency was 
obvious, and a variety of attempts were made to sup- 
ply it. While Neander, followed by Bbrard and Wie- 
seler, reverted to the obsolete and hopeless expedient of a 

1 In a tract entitled " Historisch oder Mythisch?" 

2 In his preface to the English translation of the Leben Jesu, Strauss 
admits that his theory did not go far enough ; that in referring the New 
Testament accounts to un conscious misrepresentation he had been far too 
critically scrupulous. ^ In the preface to Hutten's Dialogues he thus acknow- 
ledges his actual position : " True, I have been refuted ; but only as one who 
thinks he owes a thousand pounds is refuted when it is proved that he owes 
only a hundred." 



188 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

forced artificial harmony, and so deserted the path of 
science, others officiously anticipated its advance by a 
variety of more or less crude suggestions. Weisse, in 
opposition to the traditional or mythical hypothesis, tried 
to restore the true history of the writings by means of a 
literal construction of the testimony of Papias in Eusebius, 
and by substituting for unconscious mythi a conscious 
symbolism of parable and allegory. He pleaded for at 
least a remnant of authentic history as contained in Mark's 
gospel, rashly identifying the Mark of Papias with our Mark ; 
the combination of this document with Matthew's Hebrew 
"\oyLa" produced, he thought, the canonical " Matthew;" 
and " Luke" arose out of a still freer readjustment incorpo- 
rating independent traditions. Cotemporaneously with 
Weisse's "Critical History" 1 appeared a work on the 
same subject by Wilke, 2 reiterating the claim on behalf 
of Mark as original evangelist, though in a somewhat 
different form. The claim of spontaneity and individu- 
ality as opposed to the mythical theory might be made 
in two ways ; either changing, with Weisse, the supposed 
mythi into consciously devised allegories, or retaining the 
idea of mythus as a substratum, contending that this sub- 
stratum was consciously appropriated and subjected to the 
literary manipulation of one or more individuals. The 
initiation of the latter view is attached to the ominous 
name of Bruno Bauer, whose idea consisted in substituting 
for blind tradition the equally obscure agency of arbitrary 
volition. His wild energy and self-laudation ill atoned for 
the absence of cool judgment and painstaking research ; 
but his suggestions were not devoid of truth ; and science 
cannot afford to drop its minor agents, or to despise those 
imperfect thoughts and crude hypotheses which mark ele- 
mentary stages of discovery. Bruno Bauer shewed clearly, 

1 Die Evangelische Gescbichte, Kritisch und Philosophisch bearbeitet. 
Leipsig, 1838. 

2 Der Urevangelist, oder exegetisch-kritische Untersuchung des Verwandt- 
schafts-Verhaltnisses der drei ersten Evangelien. Dresden und Leips., 1838. 



THE LITERARY PURPOSE. 189 

although in caricature, the impossibility of accounting for 
the gospels on the mere hypothesis of mythical tradition. 
According to the definition adopted by Strauss from CO. 
Miiller, 1 my thus is the conjoint product of the general 
mind of a community. But then a community, justly 
argued Bruno Bauer, could not have produced the gos- 
pels ; a community has, in its aggregate capacity, neither 
hands to write, taste to compose, nor judgment to select. 
It is unquestionably true that tradition, independently at 
least of an imaginary supernatural guidance, implies no 
purpose or intelligent co-operation among the agents con- 
cerned in its propagation. But if Strauss unduly subor- 
dinated the element of literary spontaneity, Bruno Bauer 
plunged into the opposite extreme of exaggerating it by 
ascribing the whole of the evangelical literature to a capri- 
cious action of will without rule or motive. A step in 
advance of this crude theory of Bruno Bauer was to blend 
tradition with volition, as already proposed by Schleier- 
macher. But the hypothesis as by him enunciated had 
little more solidity than Bruno Bauer's. Sehleiermacher 
supposed the evangelists to have arbitrarily put together 
such fragmentary narratives and stories as happened to 
fall in their way. But this left the obvious parallelisms 
and contrasts, the clear indications of continuity, similarity, 
and diversity of plan in the gospels entirely unaccounted 
for; or only threw back the problem to their presumed 
documentary antecedents. This suggested to Wilke 2 the 
remark that the differences and correspondences in the 
gospels, although discretional and free, are not capricious, 
but regulated by a purpose; a purpose, however, always 
carried out within given limits, such as would be pre- 
scribed by an assigned framework of written tradition. 
Hence the revival in a new form of the hypothesis of a 

1 Leben Jesu, translation, vol. i., p. 78. 

* See an article on Wilke's " Urevangelist" by Dr. Schwegler, Tubingen 
Th. Journal for 1843, yoI. ii., p. 203; and Baur's « Evangelien," p. 6.8. 



190 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

written " Urevangelium ;" and finding it vain to look for 
the required limiting document apart from the existing 
literature, Willie thought that the common source of the 
gospels must be one of themselves, following Storr and 
others in selecting for this purpose that of Mark. The 
selection rested on trivial ground : such as the general 
consideration whether the shorter should be treated as an 
epitome of the longer compositions, or the latter as expan- 
sions of the former. Such reasoning was necessarily incon- 
clusive, as it might easily be] turned either way, and be 
used for opposite inferences. Mark, instead of being the 
original, might be only an abridgment or epitome ; and 
thus we are referred back to Luke and Matthew, and have 
to recommence the wearisome round of abstract hypo- 
theses without any definite clue to the labyrinth, or means 
of probable escape. Kather than re-embark on such a sea 
of vague contradictory fancies, it were far better to sus- 
pend our judgment, and to acquiesce in the modest nega- 
tive of Strauss, whose matured though limited inferences 
thus forestall and override the whole of this rank after- 
growth of conjectural criticism. In fact we pass beyond 
Strauss only by following out the enquiries which he ini- 
tiated. All effectual criticism of the writings is inseparable 
from that of their contents ; these contents are the only 
data we really possess ; and the freedom and completeness 
of our inferences as to these are the measure of all our 
knowledge on the subject. If, as assumed, the contents 
are unhistorical, the next question is, how did the unhis- 
torical narrative originate; what relation exists between 
its mythical contents and the free agency of the writers ? 
If the relation be ascertained to be one of mere caprice, 
enquiry is arrested ; not so if traces be discovered of a 
necessary and appreciable connection between the agent 
and the work. If from internal evidence it be made clear 
that in dealing with tradition the writers had a deliberate 
purpose, a spontaneity directed not arbitrarily and mecha- 



THE LITERARY PURPOSE. 



191 



nically, but by natural and intelligible design, we are no 
longer wholly in the dark as to the nature of the docu- 
ments, and have obtained a clue to the solution of that 
proverbially difficult problem, the discovery of a sure 
boundary between the historical and unhistorical. The 
problem ceases to be unmanageable so soon as we are 
assured that the writer had a special interest, and viewed 
the subject from a particular side. Our business is to ask 
whether in the whole or any portion of his work the 
author had a strictly historical intent, or whether he only 
adopted the narrative form for the purpose of pleading a 
particular cause dramatically, or of giving authoritative 
sanction to a leading idea; in the latter case, to weigh 
accurately the external influences under which he 
wrote, and which gave the bias from which the narrative 
proceeded. A close investigation of the historical circum- 
stances of the age is of course the only means of satisfac- 
torily conducting the enquiry. Every writer belongs to 
the age in which he lived, and the more intense the par- 
tialities and rivalries of cotemporary feeling, the more 
surely may we anticipate that traces of these partialities 
will appear in the literature, and that any one undertaking 
to write a history under such circumstances must give it a 
corresponding colouring. By ascertaining the writer's aim 
in the assortment of unhistorical materials, we first touch 
the ground of real history. A few circumstances often 
suffice to betray the prejudiced reporter, enabling us to 
read the secret purpose of his soul: each author thus 
treated offers a new departure for conjecture ; and if we 
succeed in wresting the secret from even one of the gospel 
writers, we have already gained a footing of observation 
from which to measure surrounding objects, and to obtain 
data for further comparison. 



192 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

General Procedure of the Tubingen School. 

The name of Tiibingen School has been given to a series 
of writers, led by the late Dr. Ferdinand Christian Baur of 
Tiibingen, who in a thoroughly free spirit endeavoured to 
supply what was yet wanting for the comprehension of 
early Christian literature. The task undertaken was 
to clear up the problem left unresolved by Strauss, 
uncramped by the usual timidities and unworthy hesita- 
tions. Strauss took the attitude of negation which seems 
the condition of all new discovery. He shewed what the 
gospels are not; — that they are not, strictly speaking, 
historical ; — it remained for Baur and his coadjutors to 
approach nearer the discovery of what they are ; to dis- 
close the peculiarities of their structure ; to shew how each 
of the New Testament writings grew out of cotemporary 
circumstances, and can only be understood in reference to 
those circumstances ; how, in short, by giving up a delu- 
sive semblance of pragmatical history, we get substantial 
materials for a reliable literary history. The solution of 
the problem was based on a wide range of study, and a 
variety of erudite preliminary works chiefly relating to 
the history of early Christian opinion. Baur's " Symbolik 
u. Mythologie," published in 1825, was a useful prepara- 
tory labour, implying a general acquaintance with the 
mind and genius of antiquity. In a controversial work 
against Mohler on the " Contrast of Catholicism and Pro- 
testantism" (1833), Baur is admitted to have shewn him- 
self at least the equal of his able opponent. Various 
separate treatises on religious history followed ; the 
" History of Gnosticism" (1835), supplying a valuable 
basis for later special enquiries into the history of 
Christian opinion during the first centuries, treats the sub- 
ject not merely in its technical, but in its broad philo- 
sophical significancy, not only as influencing the phenomena 
of the first centuries, but as continued through mediaeval 



GENERAL PROCEDURE OF THE TUBINGEN SCHOOL. 193 

mystics and theosophers down to the speculative theolo- 
gical theorists of modern times, including' Schleiermacher, 
Schelling, and Hegel. In 1831 appeared a work by 
Baur on Manicheism ; in 1838 a history of the doc- 
trine of Atonement ; in 1841-43 again the important 
" History of the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation ;" 
a valuable work, including a large portion of the general 
history of theology and philosophy ; shewing their separa- 
tion during the middle ages and their tendency to approxi- 
mate in later times, but somewhat impaired by a dry mode 
of expression rendered harsh through the peculiar phraseo- 
logy of Hegelianism ; wearying, perhaps, and bitter to 
the mouth, though sweet and satisfactory when properly 
digested. These works, with several others, 1 including 
numerous controversial papers and articles in reviews, form 
the strong foundation of the critical labours of Baur on 
early Christian literature. In the tenth volume of the 
Tubingen Theological Journal, p. 294, he traces himself 
the course of his writings and speculations on these sub- 
jects ; and here it is remarkable that instead of commenc- 
ing with the Gospels, as had been usual since the time of 
Eichhorn, he begins with the Pauline Epistles. The cause 
of this difference is characteristic ; it was because the aim 
of the former course of criticism, called " abstract," was to 
expose the discrepancies and contradictions of Christian 
literature, of which the synoptical gospels afford the most 
striking instances ; whereas the object of Baur is to restore 
the continuity of historical affirmation, to link the facts 
consistently and intelligibly together, for which a distinct 
understanding of the historical position of St. Paul as 
exhibited in his genuine writings furnished the only re- 
liable means. The gospel problem was doubtless the most 

1 " Ursprung des Episcopats," 1838. " Lehrbuch der Dogmenge- 
schiehte," 1847; 2nd edition, 1858. "Epochen der Eirchlichen Geschicht- 
schreibung," 1852. 

13 



194 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

striking and generally important ; but an exact determina- 
tion of the Pauline question was the necessary preliminary 
to its solution. A careful study of the Pauline Epistles, 
especially Corinthians, first convinced the author that the 
real relation of St. Paul to the other apostles was very 
different from that commonly supposed ; that instead of 
being amicable and confidential, as described in Acts 
(e. g. in chap. ix. 28), it was an antagonism carried 
by the conservative or Judaical party to the length of 
setting spies upon his conduct, thwarting in every way his 
missionary labours, and denying his apostolic character. 
Further enquiry shewed that traces of this antagonism 
extend throughout the whole post-apostolic age, which in 
its general development, as well as in the peculiar tone of 
its literary and legendary records, was mainly influenced 
by it. The results appeared in the Tubingen Journal for 
1831, in an essay on the " Christ" party in the Corinthian 
church, the legend of Peter at Borne, etc. etc., in which for 
the first time the Pauline and Petrine controversies of the 
early church were carefully determined ; the conclusion 
arrived at being that the " Christ" party was essentially the 
same as the Petrine party — consisting more especially of 
those who, boasting immediate affinity or proximity to 
Christ, denied St. Paul's apostolic character. The study 
of Gnosticism next confronted the author with the so- 
called Pastoral Letters — the Epistles to Timothy and 
Titus — leading him to see that writings plainly alluding 
to the institutions and heresies of the second century, and 
, containing other inconsistencies and anomalies, could not 
^be St. Paul's ; and the more he dwelt on the genuine 
writings — namely, the four chief Epistles, Galatians, Co- 
rinthians, and Eomans — the stronger became his convic- 
tion that a great distinction must be made between these 
and the minor letters, indeed that many or all of the latter 
are of doubtful authority. The treatise on the Pastoral 
Letters was followed by an essay on the " Object and 



GENERAL PROCEDURE OF THE TUBINGEN SCHOOL. 195 

Occasion of the Epistle to the Romans," 1 and another on 
the development of Episcopacy, — a subject of the greatest 
importance in determining the date of some of the epistles. 
These investigations supplied a basis for the renewed study 
of the ostensibly historical books ; and it now became for 
the first time possible to put a rational construction on the 
Acts of the Apostles : a work presenting insuperable diffi- 
culty when treated as strictly historical, but which appears 
perfectly intelligible and natural considered as a quasi-his- 
torical romance — as the well meant effort of a later period 
to heal party differences by exhibiting the two great party 
leaders in friendly co-operation, and vying with each other 
to raise Christianity out of its original narrowness into a 
more generally applicable form. The difficult problem as 
to the age and authorship of the gospels was resumed by 
Baur at the point where it was left in suspense by Strauss, 
who, free from partialities, yet unable at the time to do more 
than balance conflicting probabilities, had started a variety 
of questions without attempting to solve them. Here, the 
first object of consideration was the fourth gospel; the 
composition whose unexplained incongruities most excited 
while seemingly defying curiosity, and which owed its 
exceptional pretensions in no small degree to its anomalous 
character. These very anomalies now became the crucial 
instances of scientific criticism ; and the haze of mystical 
obscurity vanished when in the Tubingen Journal for 1844 
Baur first propounded the views which he afterwards more 
fully set forth in his " Kritische Untersuchungen uber die 
Canonischen Evangelien" (1847), in which the discre- 
pancies of the gospel become eloquent manifestations of a 
deliberate plan consistently maintained throughout — in the 
argumentative contest with the benighted Jews, as well as 
in the dramatic incidents and circumstances, the omissions 
as well as statements, the words as well as acts of the 

1 Tubingen Journal, 1836; since incorporated with Baur's "Paulus," and 
followed by another essay on the same subject in the Jahrbucher for 1857. 



196 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

incarnate Logos. The ascertained character of the fourth 
gospel in turn supplied hints for solving the more intricate 
problem of the synoptical ones; examination tending to 
exhibit in all a mixture of varied materials marshalled by 
a purpose ; and shewing that, instead of confused contra- 
dictory annals of synchronous events, they are in fact con- 
sistent and carefully constructed theological pleadings in 
narrative form, exhibiting traditional data from the point 
of view specifically suited to the aims of the respective 
writers. There was no longer any question of denying 
their truth, or of opposing statement to statement ; the 
very opposition and singularity of statement seemed preg- 
nant with meaning ; so that the gospels, while losing 
their character as histories, more than recovered their im- 
portance as illustrating the obscure struggles and ten- 
dencies of nascent catholicity. On the basis of these 
separate investigations larger theories were formed ; iso- 
lated legends began to assume a character of continuity 
and succession ; Schwegler, who in a special treatise (1841) 
had examined the obscure question of Montanism, in his 
" Post- Apostolic Age" (1846), reduced the. general mass of 
results to the form of a succinct literary history ; a similarly 
comprehensive attempt was made by Kostlin in the ninth 
volume of the Jahrbiicher, and the task has since been 
still more carefully accomplished by Baur. 1 



The Progressive Development of Christianity. 

The task of criticism is analytical, an elaborate investi- 
gation of facts and records. In the present brief survey 
it may be well to invert the order of original enquiry, 
and to preface a rapid analysis of the records by a short 
summary of inferences. In these, as drawn by the 
Tubingen writers, Christianity becomes intelligible as 

1 Christentimm und Kircke, 3 vols., 1853, 1861. 



PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 197 

a natural development ; and its records, instead of being" 
jumbled under an illusive pretence of uniformity, appear 
as severally expressing the varied efforts of that antago- 
nism between Pauline and Judaical notions, which had 
already been generally designated as the best clue to 
their interpretation by Semler and by Lessing. Baur, 
in his work on St. Paul, first followed out the successive 
stages of the quarrel up to its final settlement, treating 
Christianity as a progress, in the course of which, through 
much compromise and concession, original prejudices were 
so far modified as to admit a satisfactory adjustment in 
the Catholic church. — In making this preliminary state- 
ment, it is necessary to assume what must elsewhere be 
proved, namely, that several of the New Testament books 
are of later date than commonly supposed ; in particular, 
that the "Acts" are not properly historical, and that the 
fourth gospel is no report of an eye-witness, but a pro- 
duction of the second century, unhistorically advocating 
peculiar theological views. It is remarkable that even 
so zealous a defender of this gospel as Dr. Hase, who 
pathetically urges 1 the Tubingen leader not to surrender 
the historical trustworthiness of a document so inimitably 
describing divine union with the father in love, and 
making us " feel the pulses of the Saviour's human heart 
beneath the golden breastplate of the Logos," himself 
admits that the supposed eye-witness is sometimes mis- 
taken, that his recollection of earlier occurrences was not 
more faithful than that of Goethe, and that the purpose 
so clearly manifested in the composition must inevitably 
sometimes affect the literal accuracy of its statements. 2 

Christianity consisted essentially of that which is the 
essence of all religion, namely idealism. Its fundamental 
principles were ideal happiness and ideal " righteousness " 

1 Die Tubinger Schule — Sendschreiben an Herrn Dr. yon Baur, pp. 8, 
19, 20, etc. 

2 See p. 3. 



198 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

or perfection ; l it abandoned the world to take refuge with 
God, leading directly to that very theory of immanency 
which, as before intimated, was the fundamental creed of 
Spinoza. But its idealism was exaggerated and ascetical ; 
and it was hampered by the local peculiarities and preju- 
dices of its origin. Thus two contending principles 
operated from the first ; the one tending to expansion, 
the other to stability and organization. The aspirations 
of idealism had a natural tendency to grow ; and their 
growth, though begun in Judaism, soon transcended its 
limits. Yet, in its earlier stages, Christianity seemed 
to be nothing more than a phase of Judaism ; a Judaism 
either heretical, 2 or pre-eminently pure and orthodox, 3 
according to the point of view of the particular reporter. 
Indeed, the more vital portions of the teaching of Jesus 
seem to vanish with himself, and the great body of his 
followers appear after his death as mere " zealots for the 
law," 4 as distinguished from unconverted Jews only by 
the admission of a particular Messiah, and by assuming 
the title of " genuine Jews," "true sons of Abraham," or 
" Israelites indeed." 5 For although in the main point of 
approximation, namely, the idea of a Messiah, they con- 
tradicted Jewish instincts by the provisional adoption of 
a crucified one, still the breach was closed nearly as soon 
as made by transferring to the " second coming" what had 

1 Dean Milman (History of Christianity, App. to Ch. 2) conceives the 
reality of the Christian miracles to be proved by the " fact" that the miracle 
of the resurrection, or the belief in it, was an integral part of original 
Christianity, a necessary condition of its existence, and therefore could not 
have mythically grown up afterwards. But the assumed " fact " is itself dis- 
putable ; for if Christianity was first constituted by the resurrection, what, it may 
be asked, was the religion which Christ personally taught ; what were the 
apostles before their master's death, and how were they justified when in his 
life-time speaking of "the gospel" and "the kingdom" as. already subsisting? 

2 Acts xxiv. 5, 14 ; xxviii. 22. 

3 See Hegesippus in Euseb., H. E., 4, 22, with Valesius' note. Justin's 
Tryph. 8, p. 274, Ed. Otto., and comp. Hebrews. Rom. ii. 29 ; Acts iii. 25 ; 
1 Peter i. 1— ii. 9 ; James i. 1, etc. 

4 Acts xxi., 20 

5 See Hegesippus in Eusebius, and Rev. ii. 9 ; iii. 9. 



PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 199 

been left unaccomplished in the first, The perversity of 
the Galatian Christians in regard to " beggarly elements " 
of meats, sabbaths, etc., the waywardness of the fanatical 
Corinthians, the illiberal asceticism and insurrectionary 
tendencies ascribed to many among the Koman Christians, 
concur with other evidences of childish attachment to 
observance to shew that the religion long continued 
cramped with the forms and habits of thought which 
influenced its earliest expression. And this is substan- 
tially conceded even by those who, like Lechler 1 and D. 
Bitsehl of Bonn, 2 have undertaken to combat the in- 
ferences of the Tubingen school. Lechler, while depre- 
cating what he calls " attacks on Christianity" in the 
painful suggestion of divisions and animosities among 
Christians, is unable to deny the existence of two essen- 
tially antagonistic principles, or that the original Christian 
community was a dependent sect, ostensibly included 
within the general sphere of Jewish membership. 3 

But the faith of Jesus unquestionably contained germs 
of higher things. The high-wrought enthusiasm and self- 
centred renunciation which it shared with certain co- 
temporary philosophies implie/i a farewell to externalism 
and a spiritual 'revival of religion. Christianity con- 
quered the world by throwing itself on the inward re- 
sources of the soul ; it solved the paradoxes and filled 
up the shortcomings of the actual out of the stores of 
the ideal, substituting at the same time for an effete pre- 
ceptualism a direct appeal to the heart and conscience, 
and shewing that " righteousness" depends not so much on 
the external "word" or rule, as on the inward disposition 
of the soul, or the soil enabling it to fructify. The speech 
attributed to Stephen in the "Acts," in various ways so 

1 Das Apostolische und nachapostolische Zeitaller, Stuttgart, 1857. 

2 In the second edition of his " Enstehung der Altkatholische Kirche," 
Bonn, 1857. Compare Hilgenfeld, " Das Urchristenthum und seine neuesten 
Bearheitungen," Zeitschrift fur Wiss. Theologie, i., 549. 

3 See Appendix E. 



£00 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

characteristic and remarkable, may be viewed as repeating 
in tones of expostulatory recrimination the lesson of the 
Sermon on the Mount. The ideas professed by the Helle- 
nistic party, here represented by Stephen, as to the obso- 
lete character of ordinary Judaism, the feeling that true 
religion is bound to no one place, or to any external code 
of law or ritual, are more explicit manifestations of a 
feeling which, though not generally relished or appre- 
ciated, had an echo in many hearts, and its germ in the 
teachings of Jesus. The sudden development of such a 
feeling may explain the seemingly miraculous fact of the 
rapid conversion of a zealous persecutor of Christianity 
into an enthusiastic advocate ; and how, in the same way 
that these new ideas appeared to his own mind as a re- 
covery from blindness, or as celestial irradiation, the 
religious recovery and conversion of man's temper and 
disposition, raising him above the slavery of mere mecha- 
nical observance, should have been treated by St. Paul, 
not as active spontaneous righteousness, but as a divinely 
imparted "grace" or "justification." There is a seeming 
discrepancy between the original and the Pauline theories, 
between the active " Bueaioowrj" and the passive or im- 
parted " 8t/cat&)crt?." Yet the discrepancy really amounts 
to little more than a fainter or fuller expression of one 
meaning. 1 For the principle of " Sircaioo-vvr}," — the 
"perfect fulfilment" advocated by Jesus, was an ideal 
escape from the dominion of legal observance into the 
freedom of divine sonship contemplated by v St. Paul; it 
implied a qualitative, not a mere quantitative difference ; 
an altered mind, a change of disposition, — a suppression 
of individual will, and a substitution of divine, which to 
the self-accusing conscience would of course seem as 
divine in its source as in its efficacy. In Jesus the objec- 

1 See a paper by Dr. K. Planck — " Judenthum und Urchristenthum," 
Tubingen Th. Journal, vol. yi. pp. 258, 448 ; and Baur's " Christenthum," 
pp. 29, 43, etc. 



PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 



201 



tive and subjective, fulfilment and human capacity of 
fulfilment, seem to have been as yet undistinguished ; so 
that morality was still theoretically Jewish, and centred 
in the legal allegiance of individuals. St. Paul, pressed 
by a sense of man's subjective incapacity, and the im- 
possibility of perfect fulfilment inseparable from all 
systems of external law, passed to the only alternative 
through which the problem of absolute or ideal morality 
could be practically solved, — namely, that of a divinely 
conferred righteousness ; substituting the relation of grace 
for that of law, justification for fulfilment, and instead of the 
behaviour of individuals to God, calling attention almost 
exclusively to the operation of God in opening a new 
source of moral life in individuals. 

Thus when St. Paul brought out the whole meaning of 
the latent antagonism in dialectical form, — an apparently 
slight change in the expression of a theory became the na- 
tivity or crisis of a new faith. The theory of " works" was 
Jewish ; that of " grace," or of escape from law, seemed 
treason to Judaism. It was therefore very natural that the 
shock given to the heart of Jewish arrogance by St. Paul's 
abrupt announcement that religion, understood in his 
own enlarged sense, stood above national distinctions, — 
that in regard to salvation there was absolutely no .differ- 
ence between Jew and Greek, — should be deeply resented; 
and that his later concessions as to Jewish priority in point 
of time, or as to the realization of an antecedent promise 
to Abraham, etc., should be scouted by those who insisted 
on an exclusive prerogative by right of birth. Hence a 
long contest in defence of the peculiar ideas and spiritual 
aristocracy of Judaism, extending through more than a 
century, and of which constant traces occur in canonical 
and uncanonical literature. The dispute began in Jeru- 
salem, as mentioned in the second chapter of Galatians, 
where it is obvious that the attempt to force circum- 
cision upon Titus could not have been made by the " false 



202 



TUBINGEN RESULTS. 



brethren" without the license and concurrence of the 
apostles. Soon after it assumed in Antioch a more bitter 
and decided form. The arrangement provisionally authori- 
sing the Gentile mission had evidently omitted to define 
the ultimate conditions of Gentile salvation, and the regu- 
lations to be observed in the intercourse of Jewish with 
Gentile converts ; so that Peter and his associates, being 
without any decided plan of action, vacillated irresolutely 
between the uncompromising attitude of the Gentile 
apostle and the jealous exactions of the Judaists, timidly 
acquiescing at last in the views of the intolerant party. 1 
After this we hear no more of liberal compliances on the 
part of Peter, the two parties confronting each other in 
open hostility ; and hence the Judaical intrigues so often 
denounced by St. Paul in his genuine letters, — his ener- 
getic assertion of Christian liberty against the emissaries 
of the " So/covvTes" or "seeming pillars" in that to the 
Galatians, 2 — in " Corinthians " his vindication of substan- 
tive apostolicity against the disparaging insinuations of 
antagonists, the indignant protest against those " false 
teachers" and " deceitful workers," who, fortified by 
letters from Jerusalem, 3 controverted his authority, set 
spies upon his conduct, impugned his disinterestedness, 
derided his language and appearance, in short, spared no 
obloquy or artifice to lower him in the estimation of those 
whom he rightfully considered as his children, 4 and who, 
by express agreement, had been committed to his charge. 
It seems inconceivable that these bitter opponents could 
have acted as they did without the knowledge and ap- 
proval of the older apostles, whose influence is again dis- 
cernible in the peculiar prejudices combated in the Epistle 
to the Romans, where St. Paul so eagerly meets (ch. vi.) 

1 Gal. ii. 14, " Why compellest thou," etc. 

2 In trying to introduce circumcision and other Judaical ohservances, they 
even ventured to assert the concurrence of St. Paul himself in these require- 
ments. See Gal. v. 11. 

3 2 Cor. iii. 1. 4 2 Cor. xii. 14. 



PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 203 

the argument of those who pretended that Christianity, 
emancipated from Jewish restraints, was a mere occasion 
for licentiousness. 

To the resolute bearing of St. Paul in this painful con- 
troversy we doubtless owe the eventual establishment of 
Christianity upon a free and independent footing. Yet his 
lessons, which were far from triumphant during his life, 
seem nearly obliterated at his death. Corinth and Rome re- 
tained Judaising tenets, assuming from sympathy of opinion 
the characteristic name of Peter as their chief apostolic 
founder. 1 In Eome the Pauline party seem to fall into 
humiliation and disgrace. 2 The book of Revelations, 
written about a.d. 68-69, and assigning the name of 
" elect" to the Jews alone, indirectly excludes St. Paul 
from the number of the apostles, 3 stigmatising him at 
the same time as an intruder and deceiver (ch. ii. 2) ; he 
is the false prophet and apostle Balaam, the patron of the 
eaters of idol-meats, 4 the leader of the Nicolaitans, 5 and 
we have now little difficulty in identifying his Ephesian 
" adversaries " 6 as the party of John, who, soon after his 

1 Even Catholics admit St. Peter's personal agency in Eome to be incapable 
of proof. (See Baur's Paulus, p. 676.) St. Paul indeed casually bints (1 Cor. 
ix. 5) that St. Peter travelled surrounded witb domestic comforts ; why may he 
not have visited Eome ? It seems that when Gentile conversions increased, and 
Gentile Christendom began to preponderate over Jewish, the original commu- 
nity made every effort by means of emissaries to maintain the Jewish prero- 
gative among Gentiles ; that the older apostles travelled is not in itself unlikely ; 
at last it was boldly said that Gentile conversion was originally the work of the 
twelve (Epist. Barnab. 8 ; Justin's ApoL 1, ch. 39) ; and according to the 
"Kerugma Petrou" (see Clem. Alex. Strom. 6, 6, p. 637) the apostles, after 
remaining twelve years in Jerusalem by Christ's order, proceeded on their 
appointed mission through the world. Nevertheless the true state of the case is 
intimated in the fourth gospel (iv. 38), where it is said that the twelve 
reaped wbat other men had previously sown. 

2 Comp. Philippians i. 15, 16-iii. 2 : Colos. iv. 11 ; 2 Tim. iv. 10, 16. 

3 Eev. xxi. 13 ; comp. 1 Cor. ix. 1. 

4 Comp. Eev. ii. 20 with 1 Cor. viii. 1. 

5 The word "Nicolaus" is a Greek rendering of "Balaam," meaning cor- 
rupter or destroyer of the people. Tbis interpretation is now generally 
admitted. See Zeller in the Tubingen Jabrbucher, 1842, p. 715, Gieseler, 
Kchgeschichte, 1, 1, p. 113; Baur in the Tub. Jabrbucher, 1852, p. 464 ; 
and " Das Christenthum," p. 75. See also Lucke, Offenbar. Johan. 767. 

6 Comp. 1 Cor. xv. 32-xvi. 9 with Eev. ii. 2, 6 and Euseb. H.E. 3, 1, 23. 



[ 



204 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

expulsion from that city, was victoriously installed there 
with all the external insignia of Jewish high-priesthood. 1 
Henceforth the very name of the Gentile Apostle sinks into 
ominous silence ; although it were difficult to say who 
else can be alluded to in the gospel, 2 where Christ is made 
to declare that those who taught men to neglect the less 
important commandments should be called "least in the 
kingdom of heaven." Poly crates, bishop of Ephesus, 
omits St. Paul's name in his catalogue of Asiatic digni- 
taries ; 3 but he is evidently the person apostrophised by 
the writer of " James" as a "vain man;" the Judaising 
Papias denounces him; 4 Justin and the writer of "Hermas" 
transfer the Gentile mission to the twelve, 5 the former 
warning his interlocutor against the wolves in sheep's 
clothing who permitted the eating of meats offered to 
idols; and in the Clementine Homilies Peter is made to 
reprobate the wicked "antinomian doctrines" of a certain 
" detested individual," who on pretence of a vision of 
the Lord, preached doctrines at variance with those of his 
real associates and disciples. 

But the claims of vital as opposed to formal Christianity 
could not be wholly silenced, and they derived new force 
from its wider extension. The increase of conversions 
tended to break down the barriers of prejudice, and to 

1 It is observable that in Revelations "works " occupy the general position 
of superior and wider excellence which St. Paul attributes to faith ; and the 
word " Tropveia," regarded by the Apocalyptic writer as the climax of heathen 
wickedness— so that Rome herself is personified as a harlot — may allude either 
to the actual libertinism of some Pauline Cbristians, or else to the general 
tendencies of the antinomian freedom of St. Paul's doctrine (1 Cor. vi. 12- 
x. 23) which then as in the middle ages and now, might easily lead to it. 
"Tlopveia" is the culminating extreme of heathen " avo/xia," opposed to 
Christian " SiKaioavur] ;" and it should be noticed in regard to this phrase that 
all departure from Jewish observance was looked upon by rigorists as impurity, 
and that all idolatry was treated in the Old Testament as a " desertion of the 
first love," or a sort of fornication. 

2 Matthew v. 19. 

3 Euseb. H.E. 3, 31-5, 24. 

4 See Schwegler's Montanismus, p. 87 ; and Apost. Zeit. 1, 174. 

5 Sim. ix., 17, 25 ; Justin's Apol. I, ch. 39. 



PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 205 

make the privileges once so jealously defended against 
intruders a common property. The universalism of St. 
Paul became a fact; and the fall of Jerusalem con- 
tributed to prove that the success of the religion must 
be ultimately realised on a wider theatre and in a 
freer spirit. Inconvenient austerities gave way. Bap- 
tism seems early to have superseded circumcision in 
Gentile communities. On the other hand the illegalities 
especially denounced in Eevelations were abandoned, 1 and 
the harsher features of St. Paul's theory were modified 
after the example of concession set by himself towards 
the close of his career in his Epistle to the Eomans. The 
later writings more especially illustrating this tendency 
are the Epistle to the Hebrews, which, in the typical 
and symbolical language characteristic of Alexandrian 
theology, exhorts the still prejudiced convert to advance 
from Judaical rudiments to Christian perfection ; and the 
first Epistles attributed respectively to Peter and Clement, 
in which we see the Roman Church, though giving priority 
to Peter, 2 assuming for the first time a right of admo- 
nishing other churches, in the consciousness of strength 
attained through mutual toleration, and a universal 
doctrine or ''true grace" 3 raised above the disputes of 
contending factions. The coalition was promoted by 
bringing the two originally hostile watchwords — " faith" 
and " works " — into harmony, by mutual concession and 
a popular adjustment of their meaning. Faith was 
changed from a mysteriously effected internal transforma- 
tion of the soul to the plainer condition of external belief 
or party adhesion ; as to works, the principle of law was 
retained, but chiefly in the sense of purity of life and 
general morality. It was in this sense that in addition 

1 That is, iroppeia and et8«Ao0uTa. Acts xv. 20, 29. The obscure 21st 
verse means simply that the Jewish Christians were sufficiently instructed in 
their duties by the Jewish law, which was constantly read to them. 

2 See 1 Clem., ch. 5, 3 1 Peter v. 12. 



206 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

to the catholic epistles some other books, as the Acts, were 
written, and that the gospels received their present form, — 
both kinds of writing variously pursuing a polemical or 
conciliatory purpose ; the one inculcating a Paulo-Petrinic 
syncretism didactically, while the narrative books keep 
the same object in view in detailing the teachings and 
doings of Christ and the apostles. In the growing unity 
of the church minor difficulties were gradually forgotten ; 
in the East the main element of ecclesiastical union being 
a mystical exaltation of Christ's person, beginning in 
" Hebrews," and especially exemplified in Ephesians, 
Colossians and the fourth gospel ; in the West, an adminis- 
trative discipline practically embodying the universalistic 
theory of St. Paul, and mimicking the political jurisdic- 
tion of Rome. 

After the fall of Jerusalem, Eome, as the great centre 
of civilised intercourse, naturally became the religious 
metropolis ; and the concessions which made Christianity 
more accessible to Gentiles rendering it less palatable to 
unconverted Jews, the latter began to take part against 
it as accusers and persecutors. The quarrel seems to have 
been embittered by the Christian refusal to take part in 
the insurrection of Barchocheba ; the cotemporary Eoman 
bishop Xystus (a.d. 120-129) is said to have been first 
to drop the Oriental passover observance; and about the 
same time appeared a variety of controversial writings 
in the form of dialogues between Jew and Christian, that, 
for example with Tryphon in Justin, and the antilogy 
of Papiscus and Jason, — all of them calculated to bring 
home to men's minds the essential difference between the 
religions, and to substitute for the disputes of Jew and 
Gentile Christians the general opposition of Christianity 
to Judaism. In this sense the author of Acts throws 
back to ancient times the modified Christianity of his 
own day, concealing under the disguise of common 
enmity to the Jews the internal feuds of Christian parties ; 



PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 207 

and whereas the Apocalypse, treating the Jews alone as 
elect, had made the heathen a mere mob (cr^Ao?) either 
of inferior class or awaiting destruction with Antichrist ; 
the fourth gospel reverses the relation of the parties, 
making the Jews the sons of darkness and of the devil, 
as representing the perverse element which was to be 
superseded and destroyed. 

In reviewing the steps of this evolution Schwegler and 
Eitschl had taken extreme views on opposite sides. To 
the former Christianity was essentially Judaical with 
Pauline qualifications ; the other would identify every- 
thing original or vital with St. Paul. A paper by Kostlin 1 
performs the same office in more accurately explaining the 
development of Christianity which that already referred 
to by Planck did for its origin ; shewing that in speaking 
of its early conflicts we must not press the antithesis too 
strongly ; that its primitive condition was not exactly 
Ebionite, — that Paulinism was not as immediately and 
powerfully influential as sometimes supposed ; that the 
expansion attributed by Schwegler as well as Ritschl to 
Paulinism was a general Christian characteristic, so that 
both parties were not only compelled by circumstances, 
but inwardly disposed to make concessions, one in re- 
gard to ritual, the other as to doctrinal theory ; and 
while, by politic moderation, and by cherishing the 
notion of the continuity of revelation, as advocated in 
" Hebrews," the Homilies, etc., the majority coalesced 
in the church, unassimilated extremes of opinion lapsed 
into various forms of heresy, — the ascetical obstinacy of 
the Ebionite, the fanatical excitement of the Montanist, 
or the speculative innovation of the gnostic. Of these 
the most influential in regard to Catholic organization and 
literature was gnosticism. Dr. Hilgenfeld, professor of 
theology at Jena, has, among other contributions to 

1 Tubingen Journal, vol. ix., pp. 1 and 235 ; see Baur's Tiibinger Sehule, 
2nd Edition, p. 23, sq., and " Das Christenthum," vol. L, p. 87, sq. 



208 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

Biblical criticism, 1 particularly pointed out how the ideal 
element, always present in Christianity, became in gnos- 
ticism a substantive power; and how, while indirectly 
promoting catholic concentration by its obnoxious diver- 
gencies, it entirely changed the conditions of the old 
controversy by substituting for that of Jew and Gentile 
a new antagonism of free opinion against orthodoxy. 
The attempt of Christianity to become philosophy shared 
its general nature and fortunes, The prominent ideas of 
this would-be philosophy expressed the Christian feeling of 
abandonment of world, leading eventually to a more or 
less decided dualism. But it was originally Judaical ; 
while separating God from the world, and treating the 
new religion as paramount, it strove to continue the con- 
nection of new and old ideas. This was effected by 
borrowing the methods and speculative notions of Judseo- 
Alexandrianism, such as allegorical interpretation and a 
machinery of intermediate beings. Cerinthus, who first 
separated the creator of the world and the giver of the 
law from the supreme God, is said to have been a pupil 
of the Egyptian discipline ; 2 and the angelic beings dra- 
matically filling up the void between cultivated thought 
and ancient tradition continue to play a large part in all 
Judsso- Christian speculation. 3 St. Paul's repudiation of 
the law, and his spiritual constructions of the Old Testa- 
ment and of the person of Christ, were only the prelude to 
a farther and freer indulgence in kindred theories. Fed 
by Greek and other extraneous lore, gnosticism emanci- 
pated itself more and more from Jewish trammels ; until 
eventually it became decidedly antijudaical, completing 
the severance of the new and old economies commenced 

1 "Das Evangelium u. die Briefe Johannis," 1849 ; also " TTntersuchungen 
iiber die Evaugelien Justin's," etc., etc., 1850 ; " Die Apostolischen Vater," 
1853 ; "Der Pascha streit der alten Kirche," 1860, etc., etc. 

2 Philosophoumena 7, 33 ; Epiphan. Hser. 28, 1 ; Tertull. De Carne 
Christi, ch. 14. 

3 Comp. Deut. xxxiii. 2, LXX., and Joseph Antiq. 15, 5, 3, with Galatians 
iii. 19, Acts vii. 53, Heb. ii. 2, Justin's Apol. 1, 6, Apol. 2, 5. 



PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 209 

by St. Paul, and repudiating the God as well as the system 
of the Old Testament. The docetic and dualistic theory 
of Marcion is the unbalanced expression of all that was 
specifically and purely Christian in an extreme and exag- 
gerated form ; and hence a reactionary protest on the part 
of Judaism. Justin, for instance, denounces those pro- 
fessing Christians who blasphemed the God of Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob ; x and the Clementine Recognitions con- 
trovert the very principle of gnosticism as substituting the 
ideal for the real, and eclipsing the historical by the imagi- 
nary. 2 But the most interesting example of Judaical 
reaction within the limits of gnosticism is the Clementine 
Homilies, viewed as an attempt of Judaical high church 
Christianity to combat gnosticism with its own weapons. 
St. Paul is here included with Marcion under the oppro- 
brious name of " Simon Magus," as the arch-heretic, 
the "lawless" and "hateful" man, who was the real 
origin of all the discords among Christians. The Ho- 
milies, while denouncing the absolute dualism of Mar- 
cion, admit to a certain extent the fact of a moral dualism, 
and moreover a special illustration of it in the errors and 
shortcomings of the Old Testament ; but they are strictly 
monotheistic, upholding the continuity of revelation by 
distinguishing genuine scripture from adventitious mistake, 
and by substituting the idea of development and progress 
for that of contradiction. The question then occurs, where 
are we to find a reliable criterium for distinguishing 
genuine Scripture from unworthy representations and 
interpolations? The answer is that we must be directed 
by the true prophet; the true prophet being discoverable 
only by means of an exact acquaintance with the law 
of contrast and succession, misapprehended by Marcion, 
but which really pervades the physical and moral consti- 
tution of the world, etc., etc. In short, the only way 
of escaping the uncertainties of opinion exemplified in 

1 Tryph., chaps. 35 and 80. 2 Recogn. 2, 56. 

14 



210 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

Marcion, is by consulting the inspiration of true prophecy, 
which, always existing in the world, was consummated in 
Christ, and passing on to his representatives the apostles, 
ultimately became vested in the episcopal leaders of the 
Catholic church. 

The Paulinism of the second century came round in 
most of its forms to the same practical issue ; the preser- 
vation of a continuously divine economy by acknowledging 
unity in diversity, 1 and the termination of speculative 
controversies by means of episcopal organization. The 
idea of an internal change, of a transition from the beg- 
garly " elements" of a waning Judaism to the " perfection" 
of the religion of Christ, is assumed as a completed fact in 
the Epistle of Barnabas, where the Mosaic ceremonies are 
described as having been from the first intended typically, 
to have been originally devised to foreshadow a specifi- 
cally Christian meaning. The Epistle to Diognetus, the 
Kerugma Petrou, contain many gnostic ideas ; the " Colos- 
sians" and " Ephesians" combine affinities of this kind with 
an emphatic advocacy of ecclesiastical unity. The first 
Epistle ascribed to John 2 denounces the docetic heresies of 
the second century; and the so-called "Pastoral letters" 
especially shew how Pauline theology, originally the basis 
of free Christian thought, began, in its progress towards 
hierarchical Catholicism, to confront and to denounce its 
gnostic result. 3 But the rude force of authority was not 
the only or the best way of meeting the wayward ten- 
dencies of cultivated thought. There remained the more 
delicate task of refuting it by conceding its truest postu- 
lates, and by presenting in a,n unimpeachable form all that 

1 Comp. Heb. I. 1. 2 Ch. ii. 19, iv. 2. 

3 See 1 Tim. vi. 20, where Marciori's " Antitheses" are alluded to. In 
these letters an emphatic and repeated insistance on " good works" is super- 
added to the Pauline definition of faith (2 Tim. i. 9 ; Titus iii. 5) ; and the 
writer controverts dualism under all its assumed forms ; whether in Scripture 
(2 Tim. iii. 16), in practical life (1 Tim. iv. 3, 4 ; v. 23), or in regard to any- 
fundamental differences in human nature, considered as hylic, psychic, etc., 
1 Tim. ii. 4. iv. 10; Titus ii. 11. 



THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 211 

it contained that was really suited for general acceptance. 
This, the appropriate task of Asiatic theology, is performed 
by the hand of a master in the fourth gospel ; a gospel 
which, for many cogent reasons it is impossible to receive 
as apostolic, and which antiquity significantly designates 
as "Pneumatic," 1 or, in other words, as freely applying 
scriptural and traditional data to embody a spiritual idea. 

The Acts of the Apostles. 

The minutiae of evidence forming the basis of these 
inferences, spreading as they do through many elaborate 
volumes, can here of course be but briefly stated. The 
chief obstacle to the historical comprehension of Christ- 
ianity is the fragmentary character and unchronological 
misplacement of its literature ; obscurities vanish when 
the proper arrangement is restored, each document falling 
naturally into intelligible sequence. The book first con- 
fronting us in this respect is the " Acts of the Apostles." 
Here the above stated view is seemingly contradicted. 
St. Paul appears from the first in cordial co-operation with 
the older apostles ; antagonism comes only from Jews or 
Greeks, and all traces of theological disagreement among 
Christians are carefully suppressed. But we must ask, 
is the book really or only qt&asi-hi&toric&l ; a narrative 
of events, or only a theological diatribe in narrative form ? 
Does it agree with St. Paul's own authentic declarations ; 
and if not, which is the more entitled to credit ? For we 
are in fact reduced to the alternative of disbelieving the 
Acts, or of discrediting the solemn asseverations of the 
apostle. His object in "Galatians" is to assert the abso- 
lute originality and independence of his Gentile mission. 

1 Clem. Alex, in Euseb., H.E., 6, 14. Mr. A. S, Farrer, in his Bampton 
Lectures for 1862, p. 392, inaccurately states that, according to the Tubingen 
School, the gospel called after St. John is a " treatise of Alexandrian philo- 
sophy." — I may take the opportunity of saying that at p. 451 of the above- 
named work Mr. Farrer attributes to me an " absurd " opinion about mediation, 
which I not only do not recognise as mine, but am unable even to understand. 



212 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

For this purpose he enumerates all the occasions of en- 
countering his apostolic predecessors: expressly declaring 
that his authorization was not froni man, but from the 
revelation of Jesus Christ; that immediately after his 
conversion he conferred not with flesh and blood, nor 
consulted the apostles in Jerusalem, but that he went 
into Arabia and returned to Damascus ; that after three 
years he went to Jerusalem to visit Peter, remaining 
with him only a fortnight; thence returning to Syria 
and Cilicia, and continuing unknown except by hearsay 
to the Christians in Judsoa. The Acts contradict this 
statement in every particular. Here it is intimated that 
St. Paul's mission was originally Jewish as well as 
Gentile ; that very soon after his conversion ("f)fj,spat nvcs" 
or " Ikcivcu"), 1 after some hesitation and distrust on the part 
of the general apostolic body, who as yet had not it seems 
had time to convince themselves as to his character and 
sincerity, he entered into close intimacy and corres- 
pondence with them ; preaching with their concurrence 
"to the Jews" in Jerusalem and throughout Judaea. 2 Of 
this hesitation or timidity in the apostles his own account 
is entirely silent. There is no general interview or inti- 
macy, no public preaching before the Judcsans or Helle- 
nists ; and assuredly he could not have remained personally 
unknown to the Judsean Christians after making himself 
so deliberately and prominently conspicuous. The cir- 
cumstances of the second journey mentioned in Galatians 
are as irreconcileable as the first. Of the three subsequent 
journeys mentioned in Acts, to which that of Galatians 
ch. ii. may possibly be referred, that of ch. xi. 30 is 
excluded, not merely by an entire difference of time and 
,circumstances, 3 but especially by this, that in the inter- 



1 Acts ix. 19, 23. 2 Ch, is. 29, xxvi. 20. 

3 The journey of the llth chapter being synchronous with the death of 
Agrippa, — i.e., only eight to ten years, not seventeen, after St. Paul's 
^conversion. 



THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 213 

view related in Acts xv., — where the motives and circum- 
stances are generally similar, — no allusion whatever occurs 
to any prior interview or consideration of the same subjects. 
Nor does the later journey of Acts xviii. 22 tally with that 
in question; for in the same way that Acts xv. excludes 
an earlier decision of the same kind, Galatians ii. is incon- 
sistent with any such earlier decision as that of Acts xv. ; 
the apostle was bound to enumerate in Galatians all the 
previous journeys connected with the subject of hi& 
ministry; and could not have entertained the appre- 
hensions he there expresses 1 had the matter at issue- 
been previously discussed and settled. It follows that 
Galatians ii. describes the circumstances ostensibly alluded 
to in Acts xv., the same conditional recognition of Gentile 
by Jewish Christianity. But how different and entirely 
irreeoncileable the two accounts! In one, a private con- 
ference between St. Paul and the apostolic " pillars" or 
leaders, suggested by a revelation; in the other, a public 
official mission from the church of Antioch. In one, Paul 
negotiating as principal without any mention of delega- 
tion ; in the other, acting in the secondary character of 
a mere executive commissioner carrying out a public 
decree (xvi. 4) ; a decree too based upon a compromise 
contradictory to his fundamental principle; consultation 
and deliberation on a matter which, in the " Galatians," 
he treats as already peremptorily settled by his own 
authority (v. 2) ! The contest about Titus (implied in 
the word "^ray/cacriV), the whole of the quarrel at 
Antioch, are carefully suppressed; the " ovScv Trpoaavc- 
Qzvto" of Galatians is directly contradicted ; and it is 
observable that St. Paul not only omits to mention the 
decree when, had it existed, it would have been his obvious 
policy to appeal to it, s but gives instructions of an entirely 

1 C-al. ii. 2. 

54 As when an attempt was made to force circumcision upon the Galatians 
(Gal. v.). 



214 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

different and contradictory kind. 1 In Galatians St. Paul 
at once proceeds with his avocations in Syria and Oilicia ; 
in Acts he is forwarded by sea to Tarsus, whence, after the 
first Gentile conversions at Antioch had already been effected 
hy certain Oypriots and Cyrenians (xi. 20), and approved 
by Barnabas as representing the Jerusalem authorities, 
he who boasted of taking no instruction or commission 
whatever from man, and who thought himself "not a whit 
behind the very chiefest apostles," is sent for as a help and 
ultimately installed as a subordinate in the Gentile mission 
by certain obscure individuals of the church at Antioch 
(Acts xiii. 1) ! Only the inveterate habit of assuming that 
everything in the Bible must necessarily agree, without 
any attention to the fact of agreement, can make us blind 
to such palpable inconsistencies. In Acts the peculiar 
doctrines of St. Paul are scarcely alluded to. His advo- 
cacy is limited, evidently with design, to righteousness 
and temperance, the resurrection and the judgment, — 
"repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus" 
(xx. 21) ; in short, to a general Christian monotheism, 
quite irrespective of his peculiar opinions, and which 
might have been embraced by any liberal Jew. The only 
speech in which he is made to allude at all to the doctrine 
of justification, that at Pisidian Antioch, (ch. xiii. 39) 
distorts its meaning, as if, instead of the sole means of 
salvation, it were only a superadded and collateral one, 
just as it is in fact represented in the Epistle of James 
(ch. ii. 22). Indeed, the character and conduct of St. 
Paul are most unworthily misrepresented throughout. 
What pains to make him appear as a scrupulous legalist ! 
What repeated assurances as to his orthodox Pharisaic 
sentiments ! What care in emphasising his early perse- 
cutions of Christianity, and his repeated journeys to 
Jerusalem, undertaken either to consult the central 
authorities, or else interrupting his most important mis- 

1 As in the instance of idol meats, 1 Cor. viii. 4, 9. 



THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 215 

sionary labours for no other apparent purpose than merely 
to keep a Jewish festival in a strictly Jewish manner 
(xviii. 21, xx. 16, xxiv. 11, 17) ! Who that recollects 
his own language about frustrating the grace of God, and 
rebuilding what he destroyed, can believe that on every 
occasion he so far forgot or suppressed his most cherished 
convictions as not merely to avoid giving unnecessary cause 
of offence, but to sacrifice his fundamental principles ; that 
he committed acts of time-serving hypocrisy worse than 
those which he blamed so much in Peter ; that he required 
such reiterated assurances, revelations, and practical mani- 
festations of Jewish obstinacy to induce him to undertake 
the mission which, according to his own account (Gal. i. 
16), he felt to be essentially just and unquestionably his 
own from the first moment of his conversion ; and that after 
all it was left to Peter to set the example of admitting 
Gentiles, disclaiming the intolerable yoke of the law, and 
pleading for justification by faith (ch. iii. 16, x. 43, xv. 9, 
10). Such are onty a few of the perplexities arising from 
treating the book as historical ; and even if it contained 
no other evidences of untruthfulness, if it were not in 
a multitude of other instances 1 at issue with history, 2 with 
probability, 3 and with itself, 4 surely it is more rational to 
view it in the light in which alone it becomes consistent 
and intelligible, i.e., as exemplifying the ideas of the 

1 For a full statement of the case see the elaborate work on "Acts" by Dr. 
E. Zeller, Stuttgart, 1854, considered to be one of the most finished produc- 
tions of the Tubingen School; also Baur's "Paulus," and the Revue Germa- 
nique for April, 1861. 

2 For instance, the confusion about Annas and Caiaphas in the speech of 
Gamaliel. 

3 For example, the exuberant crop of legend in the twelve first chapters, the 
conduct of the Sanhedrim after Peter and John had healed the lame man, the 
assertion of the Roman Jews (ch. xxviii. 21) that they had heard nothing 
whatever about St. Paul, although intercourse between Judaea and Rome was 
constant, and although at the very time when St. Paul was in prison in 
Cesarea, its principal inhabitants went to Rome to accuse Felix. See Josephus, 
Ant. 20, 8, 9. 

4 Compare ch. ii. 44, iv. 32, 34 with ch. v. 4, vi. i, and xii. 12. Also ch. 
ix. 29, 30 with xxii. 17, 18 ; ch. ix. 7 with xxii. 9. In xx. 22 compared with 
xxi. 4 the Spirit contradicts itself. 



216 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

moderate Eoman Christianity of the second century, 1 and 
as placing before us in an elaborate imaginary parallelism 
of the apostolic leaders a wholesome example for the amity 
and union which was still wanting in the church at the 
time of its composition. 2 

The First Petrine Epistle, 

The "Acts" are only one of a large clas3 of writings 
which, obscure enough while considered as products of the 
first century, become perfectly intelligible when compared 
with the circumstances of the second ; namely, as literary 
efforts to throw a veil over the dissensions of early Chris- 
tianity, and to promote union in the church by commemo- 
rating the exemplary concord of the leading apostles. The 
first Petrine epistle is another instance of the same kind in 
different form. Here we have the seeming anomaly of the 
great apostle of the circumcision teaching Pauline Chris- 
tianity to Gentiles. 3 Attempts have been made to identify 
the opinions here taught as a specifically Petrine form of 
doctrine ; 4 in fact, however, it is but the modified Paulinism 
espoused by Peter in "Acts," indeed nothing more than 
the Roman Paulo-Petrinic syncretism of the second cen- 
tury, insisting more on works than faith, and taking faith 
in the sense of external belief or adhesion. De Wette 
notices the absence of authoritative teaching, of all indica- 
tions of a living intimacy with Jesus, combined with ample 
indications of a very intimate acquaintance with the later 
epistles of St. Paul and of James ; and hence Eichhorn and 
others have endeavoured in their own peculiar fashion of 

1 Comp. Justin Tryph. ch. M at the end. Clements Recog., 4, 36. Horn. 
7, 4, 8. Const. Aposi, 6, 12. Tertullian, Apol., ch. 9. 

2 Professor Ewald's recent treatment of the "Acts" in his work on "the 
Apostolic Age," is well described in the "National Review" for July, 1859, 
pp. 119, J20 5 etc., as hazy and equivocating in its view of the miraculous, 
and generally as criticising one way and interpreting another. 

3 See the parallelisms collected hy De Wette, Lehrbuoh der Einleitung, 
N. Testament, sect. 172. 

4 See Baur in the Tubingen Journal, vol. xv. p. 194, sq. 



THE FIRST FETRINE EPISTLE. 217 

apologetic compromise to evade the difficulty as to author- 
ship by assigning it to some neutral or intermediate 
apostolic personage, such as the Mark or Silvanus, the 
Petrine or the Pauline follower, v?ho are characteristically 
conjoined in the salutation. The epistle is ostensibly 
written from " Babylon ;" it contemplates a state of perse- 
cution, which, on the supposition of its apostolic authorship, 
must be Nero's. But how should Peter address the Asiatic 
Christians from the far East about a persecution of short 
duration, which did not extend beyond Borne ? How could 
he have known of it in time ? Peter himself is traditionally 
stated to have fallen a victim to this very persecution ; if 
so, he must himself have been cotemporaneously at Rome. 
But then how inconsistent the calm admonitory tone ex- 
horting the Asiatic converts to dutiful allegiance, — to fear 
God, — honour the king, etc., — with the sanguinary Roman 
tumult which the Apocalypse proves to have so bitterly 
exasperated the Christian mind at the time of its occur- 
rence ! How improbable that Peter would have omitted 
all mention of his fellow sufferer St. Paul, when writing to 
the churches founded by him ; or that, according to another 
improbable hypothesis, he should in the midst of the Roman 
tragedy have anticipated another persecution of a general 
character in the provinces, which in reality did not occur 
till long after under Trajan. Indeed it has been satis- 
factorily shewn 1 that the data of the Epistle, in all respects 
irreconcileable with the Neronic persecution, closely and 
circumstantially agree with the later one in Trajan's time ; 
and that the well known letter of the younger Pliny who 
was sent by Trajan as Proconsul to Bithynia, one of the 
provinces addressed in the Epistle, is so apposite to the 
circumstances as to serve as a sort of commentary on them. 
Pliny writes to consult the Emperor as to the proper 
judicial course to be taken in regard to the Christians, of 

1 By ScWsgler, in his " ISTachappstolisehe Zcitalter," vol. ii. ; and comp. 
Baur in the Tub. Jahrbiicher, xv., p. 221. 



218 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

whom he professes to know nothing except through accusa- 
tions of informers ; asking, among other things, whether 
they were to be punished in their general character as 
Christians, or only when specially criminal. 1 Similarly 
the Epistle contemplates, not a popular tumult, but a 
judicial enquiry before magistrates ; exhorting the commu- 
nities addressed to pay proper submission to the latter as 
royal deputies, and while taking especial care to avoid 
immorality and crime, to disregard the malice of enemies, 
since it was meritorious and fortunate to suffer for the name 
of Christ, or for righteousness' sake ;" and the calumnies of 
the accuser would on evidence of the truth end only in his 
own shame (ch. ii. 12, sq. ; iii. 14, sq. ; iv. 14-16). These 
indications as to date, which a minute comparison with the 
Epistle will render more convincing, may help to clear up 
the difficulty as to the place of writing in connection with 
the enigmatical "rj ev Baj3v\covc awe/cXetcrr)" at the close. 
A salutation from the wife of the apostle implying her 
presence at Babylon while he was himself elsewhere, were 
unnatural ; but if " awe/cXe/err}" be understood figuratively 
of the community or church, 2 then " Babylon" may be also 
taken in the figurative sense in which it occurs in Revela- 
tions, as meaning the church of Rome commonly so called 
in Christian parlance ; 3 and the introduction of Mark, the 
well known fellow labourer of Peter, indicates the neutral 
and conciliatory purpose of the Pauline Epistle. The allu- 
sions to elders (ch. v. 1, 2), to clerical offices, 4 and to 
"bishops" (eTTiGKoirovvTes) as a distinct class, in short, to 
an already constituted hierarchy, 5 with all the priestly arro- 
gance so ready to " lord it over the flocks" (ch. v. 3), cor- 
roborate the hypothesis of a later date ; and the general 
reference to Christians as "the true children of Abraham," 6 

1 " Nomen ipsum si flagitiis careat, an flagitia cohaerentia nomini puniantur." 

2 Comp. the 2nd Epistle of John i. 1. s g ee Euseb. H. E. 2, 15. 

4 " KXypoi" see Baur, Ursprung des Episcopat's, p. 92. 

5 Comp. ii. 5, 9-iv. 15. 

6 Chap. ii. 5, 9, 10. This is also implied in the use of the word 
" diaffnopa," i. 1. 



THE FIRST PETRINE EPISTLE. 



219 



as well as the notion of Christ's descent to Hades to reclaim 
the rebel spirits/ belong to the ecclesiastical universalism 
of the second century. The inference becomes still clearer 
when at the close (ch. v. 12) we find a formal approval of 
Pauline doctrine ostensibly transmitted by Peter, as re- 
puted head of the Eoman church, through the hands of the 
well known Paulinist Silas or Silvanus ; in short, the 
Epistle is an attempt to still the dissensions of contending' 
parties by a definitive authorisation from the supposed 
apostolic head of the universal church, — "that this is the 
true grace of God wherein ye stand" (ch. v. 12). 

Unwelcome but undeniable discoveries are often met 
with the pretence that " they were known before." So too 
it may be said here, that orthodox theologians long ago 
declared the Epistle to have been engendered by a purpose 
similar to that of Acts, namely, a desire on the part of Peter 
to shew that he had compounded his differences with St. 
Paul ; 2 and Neander and others have in recent times 
adopted the supposition, although without acknowledging 
the document to be spurious. But it is now very gene- 
rally allowed that addressing circular letters to churches 
unconnected with the writers was no apostolic practice ; 
and it appears that the first Petrine Epistle has no more 
claim to authenticity than the second, to which it in 
part owes its canonical promotion. 3 Both are missing in 
the Muratori fragment ; and Credner in his History of the 
Canon 4 traces the insertion of the first Epistle among 

1 This idea was suggested by the growing pretensions of Christianity to be 
a universal religion, a cosmical principle, extending through all space and 
time, and offering salvation retrospectively as well as prospectively. Comp. 
with ch. iii. 19, ch. i. 10, 20, 1 Clem. ch. vii. Also Ephes. iv. 8-11 and 
Baur's "Paulus," pp. 430, 463. 

2 John Gerhard in 1641— "Ut omnis suspicio de suss ei Paulinae doctrine 
diversitate tolleretur." Joachim Lange, 1712 — "Ne Petrus in causa Evan- 
gelica a Paulo videretur dessentire." Bengel— "Hac occasione Petrus 
doctrinam et acta Pauli comprobat." 

3 See 2 Peter iii. 1. 

4 Pp. 174, 189 ; and Volkmar's Appendix, pp. 377, 388, 389. Also the 
Zeitschrift fur Wissenchaft. Theologie, 4th year, 4th part, p. 423, and Hil- 
genfeld, Kanon, pp. 38, 49, 180. 



220 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

Homologoumena to Origen and Eusebius ; pertinently 
observing in regard to earlier allusions in Papias or Poly- 
carp that illustrative citations are a very different thing 
from citations of an authority. 1 

The Genuine Pauline Letters. 

Passing over the " Antilegomena," whose instructive 
historical relation to the second century is comparatively 
less open to dispute, we come to the Pauline Epistles. 
Among these, out of thirteen commonly received by anti- 
quity as genuine, four only are admitted as unquestionably 
authentic by Baur. Here too the same fictitious image 
of the Apostle, which so perversely obtrudes itself in 
"Acts," usurps his name in the superscription of several 
Epistles ; but the four genuine ones are by far the most 
important memorials of early Christianity, supplying a 
definite standard of literary authenticity and of historical 
truth ; they are in fact the basis of the whole subsequent 
enquiry. " They possess, " says Baur, " a marked 
character of individuality, of particular adaptation to 
persons and occasions ; and the more we study them, the 
more thoroughly we enter into the circumstances and 
feelings under which they were written, the more we feel 
convinced of their authenticity as living pictures of the 
time." Were it true, as asserted by Prof. Jowett in his 
work on Thessalonians (p. 37), that St. Paul's Epistles 
" have no set purpose," it were of course vain to seek 
among rambling fortuitous discourses for clear historical 
indications. "We must not," says Mr. Jowett, "look 
too precisely for an object; most of the Epistles have 
hardly my set purpose. They are not treatises written 
with a particular design or confined to a particular subject ; 

1 Vc should ha observed that the expression, ''-KexpyTai /xaprvptats," in 
Eusebius K.E. o. 39 is no critical attestation of genuineness ; it often, in fact, 
indicates only a ccrtaip supposed reference to a book implied by a more or less 
striking resemblance of expression. 



THE GENUINE PAULINE LETTERS. 221 

but the natural outpouring of the apostle's soul," etc., etc. 
Such a confession of hopeless obscurity, — abdicating in 
fact the possibility of obtaining any certain knowledge 
from the documents in question, — arises from, an inade- 
quate view of the historical situation, and especially from 
confounding the false epistles with the genuine. It is 
inconsistent with the character of the apostolic age to 
suppose that amid the busy progress of events men sat 
down deliberately to compose theories or epistolary ser- 
mons, instead of speaking as they were impelled by the 
feelings and convictions of the hour, and writing as cir- 
cumstances prompted. And hence there can scarcely be 
any surer proof that a writing is post-apostolic than the 
general, indefinite, or " catholic" character of its contents. 
For in whatever sense we take the word " catholic" in its 
application to a class of writings, whether as promoting 
the tendency to catholic union by the adopted mode of 
teaching, or in the sense of general encyclic letters of 
official admonition to communities personally unconnected 
with the supposed writers, the term must in every case 
indicate a later age than that which witnessed the first 
struggles of Christianity for existence ; and it were entirely 
misleading to suppose that the formal exposition of doc- 
trinal truisms, which to us may possibly appear the most 
valuable element in an apostolic writing, was the original 
motive for inditing it. 

The four great Epistles — Galatians, Corinthians, and 
Romans— have each of them a specific character, and 
exhibit a special phase in Christian development. In 
Galatians we have the first uncompromising assertion of 
a free and independent Christianity against the prejudices of 
those who, though of Gentile extraction, would have retained 
as Christians the observances of Judaism. " Corinthians" 
rebukes party contentions and other fanatical disorders, inci- 
dentally defending Paul, as teacher of an all-embracing 
spiritual religion, in opposition to those who assailed his 



222 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

authority on carnal grounds. The dispute which occasioned 
the Epistle to the Romans originated in deeper causes. It 
was no longer minute observances, party predilection, or 
personal authority which was at issue ; it was not the 
relations of Jew and Gentile, or of Christians generally 
in regard to Jews, but those of Jew and Gentile Christians. 
To the advocacy of freedom and of spirituality there was 
now added a distinct assertion of what was in a certain 
degree implied in the former arguments, namely, the 
axiom of Christian universalism. The pretension combated 
by the apostle may be assumed to be the converse of his 
own argument, namely, that of a special prerogative in the 
Jewish Christian, which was infringed by the admission 
of Gentiles. It was this feeling of the spiritual privileges 
of Judaism which it was most necessary for St. Paul to 
eradicate, as directly confronting and most obstinately 
resisting the principle which he advocated. A favourable 
opportunity for doing so was offered by the circumstances 
of the Roman church. So long as the number of Gentile 
converts was comparatively small, the Jew might overlook 
the intrusion, and even be lenient as to the conditions of 
its allowance ; but when in the general average of con- 
versions throughout the Roman world, and especially on 
the conspicuous theatre of the metropolitan city, the 
Gentile threatened to become the more numerous and 
important element, Jewish pride naturally took alarm, 
and felt aggrieved at seeing its supposed birthright in- 
vaded and appropriated by strangers. Hence the apostle, 
who it seems as yet had not been able to make a per- 
sonal visit, found it necessary during his second stay at 
Corinth not to delay a distinct expression of opinion in 
regard to complications so menacing; and it is a mere 
confusion between ancient and modern views to take 
the Epistle as a gratuitous expression of theoretical opi- 
nion. It is partly didactic, partly polemical ; and it had 
been usual among later commentators, beginning with 



THE DEUTERO-PAULINE LETTERS. 223 

Tholuck and De Wette, to treat the allusions of the latter 
class, contained in chapters ix.-xi., as merely accessory 
and subordinate to the former. Baur contends that 
although the theory of Christianity is the apostle's main 
object, still, in relation to this particular epistle, the con- 
troversial purpose stated in the cited chapters is to be 
considered as the originating source and chief considera- 
tion, to which the general theory in the eight first chapters 
must be held to be subsidiary. The difficulty was no 
longer as to the right to admit Gentiles, or as to the terms 
of that admission, but how to reconcile an already accom- 
plished fact with the fundamental postulates of Judaism. 
St. Paul deals with the problem in his usual manner. 
His custom is first to place the subject in the most general 
and absolute point of view, then to carry home the prac- 
tical application and inferences flowing from the principle 
so established. This he does in Corinthians, where to the 
" crotya 6eov" is assigned the same place and importance 
as the basis of the whole argument, as to the " Buccuoavvr) 
Oeov" here. From the argument establishing the absolute 
character of the latter it follows that the rival pretensions 
of Jew and Gentile can only be subordinate and relative ; 
the general doctrine solves the special case, shewing that 
the two parties are no longer balanced against each other, 
but alike absorbed in a more comprehensive system. 

The D enter o- Pauline Letters. 

Of the deutero-Pauline letters it may be said generally 
that they often exhibit a monotony and seeming vague- 
ness widely differing from the originality and vigour of 
the genuine ; instead of advocating a comprehensive prin- 
ciple, they deal with general recommendations of prac- 
tical duty; they share the irenic tendency distinguish- 
ing the writings of the second century, giving to " faith" 
and "Christ" an altered meaning; reducing the former 



224 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

to external belief or adhesion, and changing the latter from 
the regenerating power within the soul, as conceived by St. 
Paul, into a transcendental object of metaphysical contem- 
plation. Moreover it should be observed that most of 
them distinctly allude to the circumstances characterising 
the latest Christian literature ; namely, a constituted 
hierarchy, and the antithesis of orthodoxy and heresy. 
Gnosticism, the earliest heresy, appears for the first time 
under clearly marked forms in these epistles ; and its 
systematic denunciation suggests the time of Hadrian as 
the earliest probable date of their composition. For ac- 
cording to a memorable passage quoted from Hegesippus 
in Busebius (H. B. 3, 32), the church continued pure and 
undefiled by heresies until Trajan's time ; it was only when 
the apostles had all left the scene, that the false doctrines 
of gnosticism ventured to shew themselves openly. The 
original seeds of gnosticism, understood in the general 
sense of speculative Christianity, may have been doubtless 
present from earlier times. They may be recognised in 
many Judaical preconceptions, and also in St. Paul's ten- 
dency to look exclusively to the " Lord from heaven" or 
spiritual Christ, and to expand Christianity to the dimen- 
sions of a cosmical theory. 1 And hence the Clementine 
Homilies in their controversy with Marcion, pointedly 
conjoin St. Paul with him under the common symbol 
of Simon Magus. The elements of gnosticism at first 
mingled in speculative and original minds with ortho- 
dox belief; it was only through the growing incompati- 
bility of active thought with the torpid opinion of the 
majority that it was finally separated and extruded. Hence 
we are obliged to look somewhat later for the era of con- 
flict, namely the reign of Hadrian, which is indeed expressly 
given as its date by Ciement of Alexandria ; 2 and when we 
consider the strength and extent to wilich, in the view of 
several of these letters, gnosticism had already grown, we 

1 Bom. yiii. 20-22. 2 g t rom. 7, 17; ed. Potter, p. 898. 



THE PASTORAL LETTERS. 225 

shall probably not err in assigning them even to the age 
of the Antonines, to whom Baur supposes the pastoral let- 
ters to contain a particular allusion. 1 



The Pastoral Letters. 

The oldest known list of Pauline Epistles, namely the 
" Apostolicon" of Marcion, contained ten letters only. 
The so-called "Pastorals" were absent; either because 
they were unknown to this enthusiastic admirer of the 
apostle, or that, knowing, he deliberately rejected them. 
Schleiermacher, in 1807, questioned the first Epistle to 
Timothy, and Eichhorn had previously denied all three 
letters to be St. Paul's. The denial was chiefly founded on 
absence of the usual Pauline phraseology, the desultory 
unconnected style, the impossibility of finding a fitting 
interval in the apostle's life for their composition, and 
historical difficulties as to the "second Eoman captivity" 
gratuitously invented to supply one. But these arguments 
were not thoroughly conclusive, and divines could still 
avail themselves of the plea of Eichhorn, that if not 
actually written by St. Paul, they were at least composed 
by some friend or follower at his suggestion, or after verbal 
instructions given during his life. Baur in 1835 first dis- 
tinctly pointed out the historical place of these letters ; and 
the present state of the argument justifies our placing them 
with " Hebrews," in the list of decidedly spurious (vo0a), 
rather than that of questionable or "doubtful" (avrikeyo- 
/jbeva) writings. For not only has an historical situation to 
be invented in order to make room for them ; but their 
general character refutes their apostolic claims. St. Paul's 

1 1 Tim. ii. 2. See Baur's Pastoral Briefe, p. 126. He supposes 
" jSao-jAets" in the plural, especially as contrasted with 1 Peter ii. 13, to 
be an allusion to the practice of adopting an imperial successor or associate. 

15 



226 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

doctrine of "justification" is indeed noticed; 1 but the 
allusion stands parenthetically isolated among incessant 
recurrences of the neutral formula characteristic of the 
second century combining faith and works ; the key note 
of exhortation is not faith alone, but faith and love — 
"•7TW5 /cat, ayairrj ; " " evaefteia" and " #eocre/3e£a" occur 
where St. Paul would assuredly have said " ttws ; " 
" epya fcaXa" or good works, are especially insisted on ; — 
in short, the Apostle's theory is scarcely seen, and faith, 
instead of being an inward condition of the soul, is taken 
in the above-mentioned ecclesiastical sense of creed allegi- 
ance. Other circumstances inconsistent with authenticity 
are enumerated by De Wette and by Baur ; but the points 
chiefly deserving attention are the formal protest against 
heresy, the kind of heresy denounced, and the means 
recommended for its suppression. Denunciations of heresy 
— here occurring for the first time in the New Testament, — 
were unknown in the first century, when instead of a settled 
"truth" or doctrine confidently assumed as infallible, the 
primary notions of Christianity were still unsettled, and its 
very existence as a religion was yet to be secured. In his 
Corinthian and Galatian controversies St. Paul had to 
contend with important errors; but he never styles these 
errors " heresies ; " he does not assume the existence of an 
ecclesiastical rule or settled doctrine ; he speaks indeed of 
"divisions" among Christians 2 but in quite a different 
sense from that of the " Pastorals," where the word heresy 
implies the guilty repudiation of orthodoxy. And it is 
especially important to consider the nature of the heresies 
denounced, to determine who were the "false teachers" 
alluded to. These Baur conceives to be partly the Valen- 
tinians and Ophitse, whose endless " mythi," " genealo- 
gies " and " aeons," tally with some allusions in the 
letters ; but more especially the oppositions or "antitheses" 

» See 2 Tim. i. 9 ; Titus iii. 5. 2 1 c r. xi. 19 j Gal. v. 20. 



THE PASTORAL LETTERS. 



227 



of Marcion ; 1 so that we are plainly confronted with the 
controversies of the second century ; the " false teachers " 
are not the personal opponents indicated in Galatians 
and Corinthians, but persons systematically controverting 
" sound doctrine," or the settled faith of a church. 2 They 
are spoken of sometimes as present, sometimes in a more 
just feeling of chronological consistency as future ; 3 and it 
should be recollected in extenuation of the somewhat vague 
terms in which they are mentioned that a more exact 
description would have belied dramatic propriety, as too 
palpably contradicting the assumed circumstances of date 
and authorship. 4 The reiterated assurances of the univer- 
sality of salvation are directed not against those who 
limited the privilege to the fulfilment of certain voluntary 
conditions, like the Judaists of a former age, but against 
those who, like the Gnostics, made it contingent on physio- 
logical distinctions 5 inherent in human nature considered 
as pneumatic, psychic, or hylic. For a more accurate 
understanding of these letters it will be useful to recollect 
that orthodoxy, although originated through antagonism 
to the gnostics, itself incorporated in its nascent state many 
elements allied to gnosticism. Hence it is that here, as 
elsewhere, we meet with language somewhat akin to the 
heresies combated ; for instance, in the predicates of Christ 
and in the emphatic assertions of divine unity ; 6 hence too, 
while aberrant opinion is proscribed in general terms, the 
heretic is chiefly censured for his immoral practices ; 7 and 

1 1 Tim. vi. 10, taken in connection with the ascetical tenets denounced, the 
injunction to marry given in 1 Tim. v. 14 ; and it may deserve consideration 
whether the celebrated passage " wava ypatyri deoirvevsos," — 2 Tim. iii. 16, — 
may not he meant to contradict Marcion' s critical treatment of Scripture. De 
Wette, however (Lehrbuch, p. 279), quotes the word " yojUoSiScNr/cccAoi" as un- 
favourable to this view. 

2 1 Tim. i. 10, and iii. 15. H Tim. iv. 1. 

4 See Baur's observations on the names " Hymenseus and Alexander," pp. 
36, 37 sq. 

5 " <f)v(rei cafouevoi." See Clem. Alex. Strom. 6, 13; also 2, 3, and 5, 1. 

6 1 Tim. i. 17, and vi. 15. See Baur, p. 28. 

7 Baur, pp. 25, 35, 



228 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

while the humanity of Christ is repeatedly asserted against 
the Docetse, 1 the assertion is curiously balanced by con- 
flicting allusions savouring of Docetism, 2 as, for instance, 
in the peculiar expression so often occurring of "0eo? 
o-coTTjp," and the curious group of antitheses expressing in 
a popular way Christ's humanity and spirituality as com- 
mingled and balanced in the " mystery of godliness." 3 
This controversy with gnosticism forms the main argu- 
ment against the authenticity of the letters. For how 
could Hegesippus 4 have expressed himself as he does as to 
the first appearance of an heretical " -tyevhwwfios 72^0)0-^?" 
in the second century, had there existed in his day epistles 
believed to be St. Paul's, condemning it as a phenomenon 
of the first ? And indeed the singular verbal coincidences 
occurring in these letters with the above-mentioned passage 
in Eusebius may possibly suggest that since the Judaising 
Hegesippus can scarcely be supposed to have copied an 
ostensibly Pauline Epistle, the latter- may have been 
framed subsequently with a view to Hegesippus. 5 

In thus corning forward as champion of orthodoxy 
Paulinism enters on a new phase of existence. Although 
the earliest gnosticism was Jewish, the first opposition to 
gnosticism appears to have been also Jewish, as instanced 
in Justin and Hegesippus. But Paulinism, in its advance 
towards church establishment, began to shew equal anti- 
pathy to doctrinal aberrations. There was an undoubted 
affinity between St. Paul's doctrine and Marcion's; and 
although the latter was rather a fantastic exaggeration 
than a true reflection, still the fundamental assumptions 
were the same. Paulinism was therefore held responsible 
by the Petrine party represented in the Homilies for all the 
vagaries of gnosis ; and it became necessary for Pauline 
Catholicism to make that distinct disclaimer of destructive 

* Thus 1 Tim. ii. 5 ; 2 Tim. ii. 8. 2 g ee 2 Tim. i. 9 ; Titus ii. 11. 

* 1 Tim. iii. 16. Baur, pp. 31-33. * In Eusebius H. E. 3, 32. 

5 See Baur's " Paulus," p. 494. 



THE PASTORAL LETTERS. 229 

errors, which the 2nd Epistle of Peter (in. 16) treats as the 
indispensable condition of admitting the genuine unper- 
verted doctrine of the apostle himself. Hence St. Paul is 
here himself made to insist on the "form of sacred words" 
and " salutary doctrine ; " and it was natural that the 
Pauline advocate should treat the obnoxious deviations as 
proceeding from the opposite or Jewish party, 1 rather than 
as connected with his own views. The lesson inculcated is 
"peace," the avoidance of all those " questionings" which 
seemed not only useless but dangerous ; to shun vain 
speculations, and to follow practical righteousness. The 
great remedy proposed to secure these ends is ecclesiastical 
union under 2 episcopal government. This symptom of 
nascent catholicity makes another fatal objection to the 
authenticity of the letters. In his genuine Epistles St. 
Paul nowhere alludes to an organised hierarchy, although 
the Corinthian disorders were exactly such as to require 
and to suggest the expedient. In advocating episcopacy, 
the Pastorals stand parallel with the Clementines and 
the letters of Ignatius. The institution arose concurrently 
with the first dangerous outbreak of the heresies and 
divisions it was calculated to suppress : and it would be 
strange to find St. Paul here anticipating later circum- 
stances by pleading for a discipline of Judaical character 
to which in his unquestionably authentic letters he never 
alludes. 

Among minor circumstances indicating a later origin of 
the letters, is the institution of titular widows, alluded to 
in 1 Tim. v. It seems that there existed in the second 
century an ecclesiastical order technically called "widows," 
from the circumstance of its having originally consisted of 
real widows ; 3 but that a practice had arisen of receiving* 

1 Titus i. 10, 14. 2 1 Tim. iii. 15. 

3 So that the church ministry was conducted "by four classes ; the eiria-Koiroi, 
irpeafivTepoi, Smkovoi, and " xvp&h" or deaconnesses. Thus Peter says in the 
Clementines (Horn. xi. 36), that he had appointed at Tripolis in Syria, a bishop, 
twelve presbyters and deacons, and also made arrangements as to the widows. 



230 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

into the "number" other women who were not widows, 
some at a very early age, — according to Tertullian, 1 even 
under the age of twenty. These, as well as the others, 
entered into a more or less positive engagement to live 
ascetically according to a certain rule, 2 a custom desig- 
nated by Tertullian as unnatural and monstrous in regard 
to younger women ; 3 it often happening that the latter 
forgot their first faith, 4 and thus caused scandal in the 
Church. It is this state of things against which the writer 
protests. He makes advanced age, as well as good character, 
an indispensable condition for reception into the ecclesias- 
tical " number," forbidding the unnatural admission of 
young persons (vecorepat), 5 and generally requiring all, 
whether young or old, who had children or other con- 
nections (vv. 4 and 16) able to support them, to refrain 
from becoming chargeable to the church. Schleiermacher 
first pointed out the incompatibility of these circumstances 
with apostolic times; 6 and it were hard to understand 
how St. Paul, who in Corinthians (vii. 7, 32) intimates 
so decided a preference for the unmarried state, should here 
abruptly and absolutely enjoin marriage (ver. 14), unless 
other exigencies are supposed to have intervened, tending 
to prove against the rigid asceticism of the Marcionites, 7 
its propriety and necessity. And, indeed, the general view 
as to marriage and the status of women in these letters, is 
very similar to that of the Clementine Homilies, where, 

So too in 1st Timothy, the writer first describes the duties and calling of bishops 
and deacons (chap. iii. and iv.) ; and in the 5th chapter he first speaks of the 
3r/36(rj8uTepot and irpeo-fivrepai generally — in verse 9, coming to the special 
subject of the '"• widows." 

1 De Veland. Virg. ch. 9 ; and see Ignatius ad Smyrnee. ch. 13. 

2 Tertull. de Prsescr. ch. 3. 

3 De Vet, Virg. ch. 9. * 1 Tim. v. 12. 

5 If the expression " younger widows," in ver. 11, be understood of younger 
women who had been married, the subsequent injunction (ver. 14) that they 
should marry, will conflict with the restriction (ver. 9) to a single marriage. 

6 See vol. ii. of his Theological Works, p. 312. 

7 Chap, iy- 3. See Clem. Alex. Strom. 3, 6. 



THE PASTORAL LETTERS. 231 

although woman is made the source of evil, 1 wedlock is 
emphatically insisted on. 2 There was also an obvious 
reason for a repetition of St. Paul's mandate as to the pro- 
priety of female silence in ecclesiastical ministrations, 3 if 
we recollect what Tertullian states as to the practices of the 
" mulieres procaces" among the Marcionites, 4 who, in this 
respect, admitted no distinction between the sexes. 

Among the names mentioned at the close of the letters, 5 
those of "Mark" and " Luke" have a special significancy 
for those who are familiar with the conciliatory lite- 
rature and symbolical language of the early church. 
" Mark" was traditionally the companion and interpreter 
of Peter, writing a Petrine gospel under his auspices; 
"Luke" acted a similar part in relation to Paul. 6 When 
the course of events, issuing in Roman Catholicism, asso- 
ciated the functions and final destiny of the two apostolic 
leaders in the metropolitan city, the approximation of the 
leaders induced a corresponding association of their com- 
panions and followers. Hence we find a series of writings 
beginning with the first Petrine Epistle and the " Kerugma," 
in which a modified Pauline doctrine is presented under 
St. Peter's recommendation, to the more distinctly ecclesi- 
astical tone of Acts, the Pastorals, and Ignatius, in which 
St. Paul is made to patronise doctrinal and ecclesiastical 
ideas to which he was personally a stranger ; and the 
names of secondary apostolic personages are made to do 
duty either as titular evangelists, or as a collateral gua- 
rantee in appendices to epistles in a similar spirit. For 
as Kostlin remarks, 7 the titles of the gospels were affixed 
not in the time of their origin, but that in which they 

1 Comp. Horn. 3, 27, with 1 Tim, ii. 13, 14. 

2 Baur, "Pastoral Briefe," p. 5L Clem. Horn. 3, 26, etc. 

3 1 Cor. xiv. 34, comp. 1 Tim. ii. 12. 

4 De Prsescr. Hser. ch. 41. See Baur, " Pastoral Br." p. 41, as to this pas- 
sage. 

s 2 Tim. iv. 11, sq. 6 Eusebius H. E. 3, 4, and 39 ; 5, 8. 

7 Tubingen Jahrbiicher, vol. 10, p. 215. Compare on the Apostolic 
" avvepyot," Baur's Christentbum, i. pp. 129, 130. 



232 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

were arranged and legalised in correspondence with 
the tendency of their contents ; and in a similar feel- 
ing epistolary greetings were transmitted from persons 
ostensibly belonging to the opposite party, as well as from 
those known as the familiar associates of the authors of the 
letters. Thus, in the first Petrine Epistle in which Peter 
advocates Pauline doctrine, his spiritual "son" or com- 
panion " Mark" is associated with Paul's well-known com- 
panion Silvanus ; on other occasions, not Luke only, but 
Clement and Mark, are claimed as Pauline " o-wep^oi" 
and as it were summoned to attest and confirm the im- 
plied treaty of apostolical alliance. 1 To treat these inci- 
dental intimations as historical would lead to endless em- 
barrassment. For instance, in 2 Tim. iv. 11 (ostensibly 
the last Pauline Epistle), Mark is summoned to come to 
Eome with Timothy from Ephesus ; whereas, according to 
Colossians (iv. 10) and Philemon (ver. 24), he was already 
there in the company of St. Paul, and that at the very 
time marked in all the Epistles by the mission of Tychicus 
to Ephesus. 2 

The Thessalonians. 

Omitting " Hebrews " and the Pastorals, the remainder 
of the commonly received Pauline writings were placed in 
the ancient catalogue of Marcion 3 in the following order : — 
1, Galatians. 2 and 3, Corinthians. 4, Eomans. Then 
5 and 6, Thessalonians. 7, Ephesians or Laodiceans. 8, 
Colossians. 9, Philemon. 10, Philippians. On this 
arrangement Baur remarks 4 that the place here assigned to 
Thessalonians (supposed to have been the earliest of St.Paul's 
epistles) relatively to Romans (usually reckoned among 
the latest) is only to be accounted for as indicating the 

1 Philip, iv. 22. Coloss. iv. 10. Philemon 24. 

2 Comp. 2 Tim. iv. 12, with Ephes. vi. 21. Coloss. iv. 7. 

3 Epiphan. Hseres. 42, 9. * " Paulus," p. 249. 



THE THESSALONIANS. 



233 



commencement of a new series, — namely the series of 
deutero-Pauline letters ; so that we have in fact two lists ; 
one of Homologoumena, the other of a set of Pauline Anti- 
legomena ; both arranged chronologically in themselves 
considered as separate lists, though not in relation to each 
other as standing in one list. And this distinction and 
subordination of the second series of writings agrees with 
what a fair consideration of the subject will deduce from 
their contents. The first Epistle to the Thessalonians 
must, if genuine, be the very earliest in date of all the 
extant letters of St. Paul. But if, as commonly supposed, 
it was written from Corinth a few months only after the 
first Thessalonian conversions, how, it may be asked, could 
these converts have had time to signalize themselves so 
much as to have become already " ensamples to all Mace- 
donia and Achaia," nay to the whole Christian world ? 1 
How could they so soon have exhibited both cosmopolitan 
philanthropy and wide-spread demoralisation ? 2 how in 
the midst of so many pressing and immediate calls on his 
attention should the apostle have so early experienced a 
reiterated desire to revisit them ? or how could it so soon 
have become necessary to reassure the still infant com- 
munity in regard to the disappointed expectations of those 
who had died in the interval? 3 Time must have elapsed 
ere the condition of the Christian dead in the new commu- 
nity could have become a distinct source of anxiety to the 
living; ere delay in the "second coming" could have 
produced a demoralization making it necessary to warn 
the anxious or indifferent as to the necessarily unexpected 
nature of the Lord's advent, and the general uncertainty 
of times and seasons. 4 Baur dwells on the absence of 
particular motive and specific interest as suspicious ; and 
also on the needless recapitulation of circumstances already 
" known" to the Thessalonians, 5 since if they already knew 

1 1 Thess. vii. 8, 2 1 Thess. iv. 10. 3 i Thess. iv. 13. * 1 Thess. v. 1. 
5 See 1 Thess. i. 5 ; ii. 1, 5, 9, 11 ; iii. 3, 4 ; iv. 2, 9 ; v. 2, etc. 



234 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

them, why should the writer indulge in needless repeti- 
tions ? The general good advice and expressions of good 
will occasionally occurring elsewhere here constitute nearly 
the whole ; and Baur enumerates a multitude of paral- 
lelisms 1 tending to shew the absence of originality in what 
he holds to be a mere tame imitation of Corinthians. The 
only matters giving a specific interest and semblance of 
purpose to the Epistles are the notices regarding the con- 
dition of the dead and the " second coming ;" and these 
in several respects vary from those in Corinthians. In 
Corinthians the allusions are incidental ; here they are of 
primary importance, and are enlarged upon with a circum- 
stantial detail and melodramatic effect strongly contrasting 
with the simplicity of Corinthians ; in Corinthians the 
apostle looks with eager assurance to the immediate ap- 
proach of the great day, and to a victory over the last 
enemy, death ; here, in what by hypothesis should be an 
earlier epistle, delays are interposed, intervening circum- 
stances are contemplated, other enemies have to be over- 
come, and elaborate reasons are given why the " last 
things" are not to be immediately expected. Such indi- 
cations point to the priority of Corinthians, and to the 
later date of the apology for postponement. The cause of 
delay is, according to the second Epistle, a certain mys- 
terious restraint or impediment ; '' to /carexov," or " 6 
fcarexcov" — a hindrance or hinderer, — whose time must be 
completed before Antichrist, or the " mystery of iniquity," 



1 Compare, 


for instance 


1 Thess. i. 5 


with 


1 Cor. ii. 1, 4. 


?) 


3> 


3> 


i. 6 


>> 


„ xi. 1. 


V 


jj 


V 


ii. 4 


J5 


„ iv. 3; 2 Cor. ii. 17; 
and v. 11. 


» 


» 


3J 


ii. 5 


5> 


2 Cor. vii, 2. 


)) 


« 


J> 


ii. 6, 9, 








and 2 Thess. 


iii. 8, 9 


)> 


„ xi. 9, xii. 1 3 ; also 1 Cor . 












iv. 12; ix. ll,x.33. 


J) 


?> 


1 Thess. ii. 7 


)) 


1 Cor. iii. 1, 2. 


» 




)> 


iii.1,6 


5> 


2 Cor. vii. 6. 



These parallelisms should be studied with Baur's Commentary (Paulus, p. 
481 ; and Tubinger Theol. Jahrbucher for 1855. vol. xiv. p. 143) in order to 
be correctly appreciated. 



THE THESSALONIANS. 



235 



can be fully revealed. An over-impatient expectation or 
sudden rumour of the approach of the apprehended catas- 
trophe had, it seems, produced a panic ; x and the writer's 
object is to calm disquietude by shewing that a whole 
series of events must first occur; that Christ could not 
come until Antichrist had come, — that the latter could not 
come until after a great preliminary revolution, consisting 
first in a falling away or apostacy, and then the removal 
of the hinderer or " /carexoov." All this suggests a later 
date than that of the apostle ; and Baur 2 thinks that the 
circumstances remarkably agree with the panic described 
by Tacitus 3 as propagated " throughout Asia and Achaia" 
by a rumoured return of Nero from the East. Eecollect- 
ing how the Apocalypse represents Nero as the eighth 
king, who was also of the prior seven, and who was to 
return in the character of Antichrist, the imagery borrowed 
from Daniel as to the "mystery of iniquity" will signify 
the Eoman power, and the cotemporary "hinderer" will be 
the reigning Emperor Vespasian, the seventh king of 
Revelations, and consequently beyond the view of St. 
Paul. 4 Other circumstances point to the same inference. 
As in Acts, the adversaries of Christianity are no longer 
Judaising Christians but "Jews;" 5 and when it is added 
that they " had filled up the measure of their iniquities 
until wrath had come upon them to the uttermost," it is 
scarcely possible to avoid concluding that the siege of 
Jerusalem was already a past event. And when at the 
close 6 the writer speaks of the apostle's signature as an 
ordinary token of genuineness, we are led to ask how 
could he have used such language as to his established 
practice in the very first epistle he ever wrote ; how can 

1 2 Thess. ii. 2. 2 Tubingen Jahrbiicher, vol. xiv. p. 154. 

» Hist. 2, 8. * Eev. xvii. 5, 10, 11. 

5 1 Thess. ii. 15. Denunciations of the Jews in Christian writings, — so 
unlike the feeling expressed by St. Paul in his genuine letters (Rom. ix. 3, 
etc.) may be regarded as a sure sign of later origin. 

« 2 Thess. iii. 17. 



236 



TUBINGEN RESULTS. 



precedent and habit be thought to have existed antece- 
dently to act ; how could he have so early anticipated the 
rise of a spurious Pauline literature, or have thought it 
necessary to put his audience on their guard before any 
fictitious letters could have existed? No one would cry 
"beware of forgery" at the first issuing of the genuine 
article, before there could be a suspicion of a counterfeit, 
before any false pretenders could be expected in the field ; 
but it appears from 2 Thess. ii. 2, that forgeries there 
already were, a formidable fact in regard to the authenticity 
of the Epistle. In the genuine letters the salutation is a 
mere assurance of personal regard unconnected with sus- 
picions of forgery ; to alter its meaning and divert it from 
its obvious purpose into a criterion of genuineness, for 
which, as being easily imitated, it was quite unsuited, 
would only occur to a later writer, who having before him 
a number of Pauline letters all containing an analogous 
formula, thought it worth while to adopt this seemingly 
characteristic indication, and moreover to call the attention 
of his readers to the circumstance. 



Jowett and Hilgenfeld on " Thessalonians." 

When Professor Jowett, in his work on St. Paul, dis- 
misses Baur's inference as fallacious, we might hope to 
find his. own view satisfactorily supported. The expecta- 
tion is, however, not gratified. The external testimony to 
the genuineness of the Epistles is at once admitted by the 
Professor to be weak; and his own reasoning is accom- 
panied with so many qualifications and apologies, that it is 
clear the author himself has no confidence in it. Indeed 
the circumstances relied on to prove the genuineness of the 
Epistles, are much the same as those adduced by Baur in 
disproof. Both writers admit the necessity of in some way 
separating the authorship of Thessalonians from that of 



JOWETT ON "thessalonians." 237 

Galatians ; but while Baur assigns them to different 
authors, Jowett attributes them to the same author in 
different states of feeling' and at different periods of life. 
He assumes that St. Paul's mind, in the interval between 
his conversion and the date of his later labours, as alluded 
to in Galatians, Corinthians, etc., underwent an important 
change ; and then proceeds upon this assumption to con- 
trast the apostle, as self-represented in Thessalonians, with 
his later self, in a manner strongly suggesting that Baur's 
view is, after all, the truer one, and that any other than 
St. Paul must be the real author of these Epistles : — 

" The Epistles to the Thessalonians, read as witnesses of 
the apostle's mind and life (that is, assuming their genuine- 
ness), belong to a prior stage of his life, when he was, so to 
speak, not aware of the great thoughts which were after- 
wards, by the will of God, to grow up in him 

Nothing is gained by attempting to combine these 
Epistles artificially with the later writings. No such 
connection could have been present to the mind of the 
apostle. The real light which they receive from one 
another is that of contrast. Two writings of the same 
author could not be more different than the Epistle to the 
Thessalonians, and that following next in order, the Epistle 
to the Galatians. The latter is fervid and abrupt, full of 
argument and interrogation, speaking in a tone of authority, 
etc. ; whereas the Epistles to the Thessalonians are the least 
impassioned of any of St. Paul's writings ; they are not 
argumentative at all ; they invite rather than command ; 
nor are they marked by any of the apostle's deepest and 
most inward feelings. The difference of subject is as 
marked as the difference of style. No mention occurs of 
the great question of circumcision and uncircumcision, of 
faith and works, of the relation of Jew and Gentile ; of 
death and life, etc., etc. All that we are accustomed to 
regard as peculiarly characteristic of the apostle, the great 
themes of his other Epistles, are here wanting. Instead of 



238 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

them, he here dwells on the immediate coming of Christ, 
whom 'we that are alive' are to meet in the air, in a manner 
unlike his allusions in other places either to a future life, or 
to the union of the believer with Christ. — The gospel of 
these Epistles is not the gospel of the cross of Christ, but 
of the coming of Christ. 

" It were hard, indeed, to suppose that the St. Paul who 
wrote Thessalonians, felt and thought like the same St. 
Paul writing to the Romans or Galatians ; or to maintain 
that he purposely withheld and kept back in the former 
what in the latter he was commissioned to reveal. Such a 
supposition would involve the further difficulty that in the 
later epistles he also withheld what in the earlier formed 
the substance of his teaching. Are we to conceive that 
' the man of sin,' and ' that which letteth' — the matters on 
which he preached to the Thessalonians even before he 
wrote to them — were still latent in his mind throughout 
his subsequent ministry ? that he was daily living in expec- 
tation of them, but that no occasion arose in his later 
writings for him to allude to them again ?" 

Doubtless all this is extremely improbable, and so far it 
is impossible not to agree with Mr. Jowett. But when he 
goes on to argue that these incredible things really occurred, 
that in consequence of a great mental transformation be- 
tween the date of the two writings, — so great that the 
author of one is no longer recognisable in the other — St. 
Paul is still to be considered the writer of both, we are 
naturally led to ask the nature of the circumstances, the 
date, the cause, the antecedent probability, of so great an 
assumed change, of which, as admitted by Mr. Jowett, we 
have no substantial evidence except in the very book 
whose authorship is questioned ; in other words, in a fore- 
gone conclusion, or the circular argument, — St. Paul is 
to be presumed to have written Thessalonians because a 
great change occurred in his mind, of which the main, or 
rather the only proof, is Thessalonians itself. For Mr. 



JOWETT ON "thessalonians." 239 

Jowett evidently himself feels that it is but torturing St. 
Paul's language — really describing the contrast between 
the fleshly and spiritual disposition generally, between 
the Christian and the non-Christian, the ideal and the 
sensuous, between the " ttclXcllos avOpwiros" and the " kcuvtj 
KTto-Ls" — when he tries to elicit from passages of this 
nature, (including several which are evidently ironical or 
hypothetical) 1 , corroborative evidences of a subsequent 
change in his mind and mode of teaching, greater and 
more momentous than that of his first conversion ; assum- 
ing moreover that his supposed prior views were pro- 
pounded in a distinct series of epistles ; 2 and this in spite 
of the apostle's own solemn assurances in Galatians as to 
the absolute and exclusive nature of the gospel preached 
by him, and of his absolute and " immediate" adoption of 
it from the very first moment of his conversion! 3 Mr. 
Jowett's argument supposes that although " more than 
half the apostle's ministry had elapsed ere he set his hand 
to ' Thessalonians,' — the ' first of his extant writings,' — 
(p. 6) he was during the whole of this period ' unaware of 
the great thoughts ' which form, not only the staple of his 
later more important writings, but the very foundation of 

1 The change which occurred in St. Paul's mind was the great original 
change hy which, from the "fleshly" notion of a Jewish Messiah, he became 
converted to the Christian notion of a dying and risen Christ ; it was a change 
effected not by external circumstances, but by inward conviction (Gal. i. 16 ; 2 
Cor. iv. 6.) This is the change alluded to in the passage principally relied on 
by Mr. Jowett (2 Cor. v. 16) as indicating not merely a second change subse- 
quent to the first, but also an intermediary teaching in conformity with the first 
stage of feeling, and preceding the gospel which St. Paul so emphatically in- 
sists upon as the only true one in Galatians and Corinthians. Mr. Jowett 
evidently builds far too much on the hypothetical " ei Se kccl syvoonaixev" of the 
above passage, and also on the hypothetical and ironical " ei i^piTo^v en 
/ojpuctff-w" of Gal. v. 11, which in his note on the passage he rightly considers 
as an implied denial of a false imputation of his adversaries. The other pas- 
sages cited by Mr. Jowett (1 Cor. iii. 1, and ix- 20 ; Philippians iii. 13, and iv. 
15), afford him little help, as he indeed admits himself, when confessing that 
the whole issue is problematical ; that the allusions are obscure, and far from 
sufficient to enable us to determine the meaning (pp. 10, 12, 14, 15), in short, 
that the period of St. Paul's life, supposed to be represented in Thessalonians, 
really exists nowhere except in Thessalonians itself. 

2 See 2 Thess. ii. 2 ; iii. 17. * See Gal. i. 7-9; ii. 16. 



240 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

his mission itself ; that these grander and higher thoughts 
were all engendered during the ' four or five years at the 
utmost' (p. 6) intervening between Thessalonians and 
Galatians; and that after all, the difference so greatly 
separating the apostle from himself was not of such a 
nature as to have allowed of his agreeing with the other 
apostles, since from the first he was the apostle of the 
Gentiles (p. 14) !" Who, after duly considering these 
suggestions, will not rather be disposed to sympathise with 
Mr. Jowett's latent suspicion that they are " fanciful and 
far-fetched," (p. 11) than to adopt his expressed inference, 
and to see that they are adduced only to give colour to the 
assumed genuineness of Thessalonians which are thus made 
to "fitly come in," or to obtain a natural place in the 
mental life of the apostle. Perhaps considering the 
general weakness of his argument, the vain effort to make 
an untenable distinction (p. 12), the ineffectual denial of 
the allusion to the destruction of Jerusalem, 1 the qualifica- 
tions and confusions everywhere, 2 the Professor may be 
disposed to withdraw in some subsequent edition an evi- 
dently hesitating opinion, especially when he discovers that 
he had Baur's theory before him only in its first form as 
expressed in the work on St. Paul, not the more precise 
statement of it subsequently given in the fourteenth 
volume of the Tubingen Journal for 1855. 

An attempted reply to Baur, recently put forth by Dr. 
Hilgenfeld in his " Zeitschrift fur Wissenschaftliche Theo- 
logie," 3 in favour of the first Thessalonian Epistle, seems in 

1 1 Thess. ii. 16. Prof. Jowett says, "wrath is come upon them to the 
uttermost," means " wrath or reprobation of God ;" and therefore could not 
mean temporal punishment ! Also that the words imply not a past event, hut 
a prophecy. But then e^flacre or etyOaice is a past tense, implying, according 
to Mr. Jowett himself in his note on the passage, " has come upon them to 
the uttermost," in short, " a past historical event." — See p. 63, compared with 
p. 20. 

2 Thus the professor says that the 2nd Epistle to the Thessalonians, which, 
according to him, expresses St. Paul's meaning in the first stage of his 
ministry, is in harmony with the later Epistles, i.e., the third series of Pauline 
literature, p. 13. 

3 For 1862, p. 225 sq. 



HILGENFELD ON " THESS ALONIANS." 241 

like manner rather to confirm by its feebleness the argument 
controverted. Hilgenfeld complains of Banr for going too 
far ; and while admitting the four first Epistles to be the all- 
important ones by which all other Pauline works must be 
judged, insists on substituting the sacred number of seven 
genuine letters, including Philemon, Philippians, and 1st 
Thessalonians, for what he calls the heathen " Tetractys" 
of Baur. His reasons are singularly weak. The high 
encomia passed on the Thessalonian converts, which Baur 
thought applicable only to a long-established community, 1 
he attributes to polite exaggeration, which must not, he 
says, be too nicely weighed. The boast as to an independent 
livelihood, 2 which Baur treated as copied from Corinthians, 3 
may well, says Hilgenfeld, have been repeated, as well as 
the circumstances occasioning it ; for why should not the 
apostle have been several times exposed to the same asper- 
sions, and have repeated the same defence ? Among the 
many efforts made to escape the seemingly obvious refer- 
ence to the destruction of Jerusalem in 1 Thess. ii. 16, 
Hilgenfeld's are by no means the happiest ; most of them 
rather tend to strengthen the inference disclaimed. Eitschl 
would evade the difficulty by repudiating the passage as an 
interpolation ; Liinemann contends that " et? TeXo?" means 
not the end or destruction of the Jews, but the uttermost 
extremity of Divine anger. This construction is rejected by 
Hilgenfeld as ungrammatical ; 4 but his own suggestion is 
not more fortunate. He says that St. Paul here uses the past 
tense, " efyOacrev" in reference to the future, because he so 
confidently anticipates the impending futurity as to be jus- 
tified in speaking of it, not only as present, but as actually 
past ; and he refers to certain instances (1 Thess. i. 10, and 
2 Thess. ii. 9), where a present tense is used in anticipation 
of a future event. In regard to the announcement in 

i 1 Thess. i. 7, 8. M Thess. ii. 9. 

3 1 Cor. ix. 11 ; x. 33 ; 2 Cor. vii. 2; viii. 20; xi. 7; xii. 13. 

4 Compare reXos ttjs opyrjs, in Wisdom xii. 27. 

16 



242 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

ch. iv. 13 sq., as to the " second coming" and condition of 
the dead, he remarks, — " The whole passage so entirely 
agrees with 1 Cor. xv. 23, 51, that we get a clear and 
satisfactory idea of the apostle's eschatological expecta- 
tions only by combining the two accounts ; so far from 
being unfavourable to St. Paul's authorship, the language 
confirms it, since only in the early Christian age could the 
anxieties here alluded to have been felt." But the question 
is not as to the early Christian age in general, but as to the 
particular section of it included within St. Paul's lifetime ; 
and the " perfect knowledge" attributed to the Thessalonians 
in the passage next cited (1 Thess. v. 2), would indicate a 
longer familiarity with Christian opinions than allowed by 
the chronology. So that when Hilgenfeld concludes by 
reiterating his admission that the letter under review, 
though not unworthy of the apostle, is not to be compared 
in importance and fertility of thought with the four princi- 
pal ones, — that St. Paul seems here "not to have yet 
arrived at the full maturity of his logical powers" and of 
his " apostolical consciousness," here again we have the 
apostle paradoxically divided from himself, and find Baur's 
justification in the unwilling admissions of his opponent. 

Ephesians and Colossians. 

The Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians are still 
more decidedly at issue with their reputed age than Thes- 
salonians. After it had been shown in the case of the 
" Antilegomena" that apocryphal writings exist in the 
Canon — in the case of the " Pastorals" that there are 
pseudo-Pauline epistles — it would not seem surprising that 
the list of spurious writings should turn out to be still 
more numerous. De Wette, in the year 1843, first ven- 
tured, to the great scandal of theologians, to pronounce 
Ephesians to be a mere derivative amplification of Colos- 
sians ; and unquestionably the two epistles exhibit so close 



EPHESIANS AND C0L0SSIANS. 



243 



a material, and even verbal, agreement, that it is impossible 
not to recognise the copyist, and to infer that either Ephe- 
sians has been enlarged from Colossians, or Colossians 
abridged from Ephesians. But it is not to be supposed 
that one so full of thought and energy as St. Paul should 
deliberately copy himself; or that he should have made 
about the same time so very similar a communication to 
two communities situated so near to each other. Nor on 
fairly considering the subject can it appear likely that the 
language ascribed to the apostle in these epistles was used 
by him at all. St. Paul, for instance, could hardly have 
addressed the Ephesians in such terms as in Ephes. i. 15, 
iii. 2, after having so long personally known them ; he 
would not in the midst of his incessant and ill-requited 
toils have spoken of himself — in conjunction, too, with the 
other apostles whose co-operation he elsewhere so pointedly 
declaims — as an already realised " foundation ;" x he would 
not have specifically appropriated to the apostles, himself 
included, the appellation " aytoi," 2 an epithet often so used 
in post-apostolic times, but never in apostolic ; he would 
not have altered the natural word "e\a%t?o?," 3 into the 
affected " eXa^orepos ;" 4 he could not at so early a period 
have had occasion to raise a warning voice, — not merely 
against schisms or " divisions," but against contending 
sects and doctrines. 5 But the general argument and allu- 
sions of both these epistles carry us beyond the limits of 
apostolic times to an age when primitive simplicity had 
already been corrupted, 6 and when orthodoxy was engaged 
in a struggle to disentangle the "true wisdom" 7 from 
gnostic speculation. Both epistles are, in fact, strangely 
replete with gnostic ideas and terminology. Christ is de- 
scribed not only as progressively exalted, but as originally 

1 Ephes. ii. 20. 2 Ephes. iii. 5. 3 \ c or . xv. 9. 

4 Ephes. iii. 8. 5 Ephes. iv. 14. 

6 By the "rudiments of this world;" see Ephes. i. 8; iii. 3; Coloss. i. 9; 
ii. 3, 8. 

7 Coloss. ii. 3. 



244 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

the pre-existent source of all being, the centre of the spi- 
ritual universe, the leader of the regular gradations of a 
celestial hierarchy, consisting of " thrones," " dominions," 
etc. Nothing like this occurs in the genuine Pauline letters ; 
it is only to be found in the systems of the Yalentinian 
gnostics. 1 The genuine letters certainly allude to Christ's 
eventual exaltation, 2 and to the inability of any power, 
natural or supernatural, to sever us from him ; 3 but this 
language is quite general, falling far short of the represen- 
tations here given of Christ's hierarchical supremacy over 
the varied gradations and rulers of the spiritual world. 
Among the gnostics alone is to be traced the source of 
those elaborate metaphysical speculations which treated all 
things as a progressive " ceconomy" or dispensation of spi- 
ritual emanation and return. 4 The constantly recurring 
words " Pleroma," " yLvsiqpiov" " aofyia" " yvcoo-is," 
" acwves" — lead to the same inference ; and it may be 
noticed in passing that in Ephes. ii. 2, the "iEon of this 
world" is not to be translated, as in our version, " course 
of this world," but as the personified equivalent of what 
follows, namely — the Prince of the power of the air, the 
Cosmocrator 5 or devil of Valentinus. The chief distinction 
between gnosticism and these epistles is that here the 
" pleroma" is specially identified with Christ instead of 
God, and that the general purpose is more hierarchical 
than metaphysical, metaphysical speculation being subordi- 
nated to hierarchical purpose ; as where the spiritual union 
or return of all things is contemplated politically instead 
of cosmically, or when " ecclesia " is substituted for 
" <To<fiia" as the adjunct or " ■oT,£vyos" of Christ. The 
great object of the letters is to promote ecclesiastical 
organisation by pointing to Christ as pre-existent source 
of all being, presiding over the varied gradations of the 

i Comp. Irenae. 1, 4, 5, Theodoret. Fab. 1, 7. 2 1 Cor. xv. 24. 

3 Rom. viii. 38. 4 Comp. Ephes. i. 10 ; Coloss. i. 20, 26; iii. 3. 

6 Comp. Ephes. vi. 12. 



EPHESIANS AND C0L0SSIANS. 



245 



celestial hierarchy of "aeons," "thrones," "principalities," 
etc., etc. It has been suggested that the epistles may 
have been the primary sources of such ideas, or, suppos- 
ing them as already existing, to have been intended to 
refute them. But these suppositions repel each other. 
There is certainly no attempt in either of the epistles 
to refute ideas which they rather tend to encourage ; 
and assuredly such notions are less likely to be original 
where they are only incidentally applied for an ulterior 
object, than where they are substantially advanced and form 
integrating parts of a system. And how wide the difference 
between these epistles and Galatians ! In the latter St. 
Paul is engrossed with the grand material conditions of 
salvation. Here, on the contrary, the object is not soteri- 
ology, but the Christological theory which in the sequel be- 
came the chief pre-occupation of Asiatic Christianity ; in- 
stead of dwelling on religious influences and effects, our 
whole attention is here concentrated on the source of those 
influences, i.e., the person of Christ ; and that not so much 
for its own sake, as to establish a firm rallying ground of 
church centralisation, comprehending in its ample circum- 
ference the farthest regions of the invisible world ! The 
letters can be comprehended only as the product of a time 
intermediate between the first enthusiastic feelings of Chris- 
tianity and the definitive establishment of the church ; 
when the general notions afterward designated as gnostic 
were already obscurely circulating ; when the meaning of 
the word "faith" had already varied from the deep in- 
ternal change intended by St. Paul, to its more practical 
and Catholic sense j 1 when ecclesiasticism began to acquire 
solidity and form, and the idea of universal privilege to 
pass into that of universal government, symbolically repre- 
sented as a" fellowship of the body of Christ," and signi- 
fying corporate union rather than moral equality ; when 
Asiatic Christianity had alread}^ become involved in a 

1 See Coloss. ii. 7. 



246 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

long conflict with the Judaical leanings of its early 
Johannean type, 1 and was successfully striving in opposi- 
tion to monotheistic scruples to elevate the person of its 
founder to the level of God, in order to embrace and recon- 
cile from this commanding altitude, all the varieties and 
antagonisms of Christianity and of the world. St. Paul 
created Gentile Christianity; he stands at the commence- 
ment of a movement which led to the long antagonism, 
of which in Ephesians and Colossians we begin to see the 
termination. 

The Philippians. 

" Philippians," though a Roman production, may be pa- 
renthetically noticed among the assumed memorials of the 
Eastern Church 2 on account of certain kindred allusions. 
De Wette, who rejected " Ephesians," is positive as to the 
authenticity of Philippians ; and yet all the (so-called) 
epistles of the captivity will be found to imply difficulties 
as to doctrine and situation more or less inconsistent with 
the hypothesis. 3 The argument may be here limited to a 
point peculiarly suggesting chronological affinity with the 
last-named epistles. This is the singular theory of Christ's 
humiliation or "/ceixwcrt?," 4 — literally, " self-inflicted empti- 

1 Ephes. ii. 11, etc. ; Coloss. ii. 20, etc. 

2 Schwegler, in his Nachapost. Zeitalter, ii. p. 297, speaks very positively 
as to "Ephesians" and "Colossians" having originated among the circum- 
stances of Asiatic Christianity to which they refer ; yet it may be difficult to 
prove this ; the subordination of speculative Christology to the aims of ecclesi- 
astical union would rather seem to favour a Roman origin. This special 
question, however, is only of secondary interest in considering the general 
chronology and sequence of Christian ideas. 

3 According to Acts xxviii. 30 St. Paul lived two years in his own house in 
Rome receiving all comers ; and (according to Philippians i. 13 ; iv. 22) en- 
joying, — ostensibly under the very eyes of Nero, — the prospect of "saints" in 
the palace, and of a general Roman conversion. Whence, then, the tone of 
bitter vexation and despondency prevailing in epistles assumed to be co- 
temporaneous ? (Philip, i. 15; ii. 20, 21 ; iii. 2. Coloss. iv. 11. 2 Tim. iv. 
10, 16). F. Bleek (Einleitung N. T. p. 428) is forced by a chronological 
comparison to admit that the whole matter of the journeys and epistles of 
St. Paul is involved in hopeless uncertainty. 

* Philip, ii. 8. 



THE PHILIPPIANS. 



247 



ness," an expression evidently antithetical to the gnostic 
" fullness" or Pleroma. The idea has been shewn by Banr 1 
to admit of explanation only through the gnostic concep- 
tions detailed by Irenseus 2 and Theodoret. 3 Dr. Charles 
J. Vaughan, in a series of recently published Lectures on 
Philippians, makes this passage, among others, a subject 
of pious reflection. He is struck with the strange word 
" robbery," and with the general similarity of the expres- 
sions used in regard to Christ's approximate or actual 
divinity to those found in Hebrews, Colossians, and the 
fourth gospel; but he makes no attempt at explanation, 
contenting himself with the devout ejaculation — "God give 
us grace to accept in simplicity and to hold fast in reverence 
this revelation of our Lord's pre-existence, eternity, and 
divinity." 4 Such language may suit those who contentedly 
await the gratuitous solution of literary obscurities in a 
future world ; but it fails to satisfy the not unreasonable 
wish to obtain even here an intelligent acquaintance 
with their meaning. The chief difficulty is in the word 
" apTra<yfjuos" translated in our version, "robbery." It 
signifies, however, not so much the act as the object of 
violence, — a thing wrongfully or obstinately grasped ; and 
the obvious meaning is that Christ, although " in the form 
of God," and therefore in a sense entitled to claim " equality 
with Him," did not immediately and absolutely seize and 
insist upon his right, but abdicated and humbled himself, 
etc. ; or, to use a paraphrase, he possessed potentially a 
character which in consideration of the work of salvation 
before him, he did not think proper to assume actually 
and at once. Baur shews that this idea of a potential 



1 Paulus, p. 458 sq. and Tubingen Journal, vol. ii. p. 133. 

2 Hser. i. 3, 2 and iv. 1. 3 Hser. Fab. i. 7. 

4 Dr. Vaughan speaks as if bewildered and astonished by the coincidence 
here confronting him. — " Why, this is the very language of the opening of 
St. John's gospel; the very language of the opening of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews ; Jesus Christ was before he was born ; was originally ; was in the 
beginning !" Then he adds — "God give us grace," etc. etc. 



248 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

divinity, which it might have seemed undue precipitation 
or " robbery" to have at once assumed, stands in unques- 
tionable affinity with the unsatisfied eagerness of the gnostic 
emanations or iEons described in Irenseus to identify them- 
selves with the Absolute from whom they proceeded. 
Christ here appears as one of the iEons, those personifica- 
tions of the varied subjective forms representing the Abso- 
lute to the consciousness. Gnostic theory supposes two 
conceivable ways of effecting a reunion between these con- 
trasted aspects of being; one, that of an immediate coalition, 
the other that of gradual approximation ; the former, how- 
ever, is practically impossible; the Absolute cannot be 
apprehended prematurely and partially, or indeed in any 
way except in the general process of the development of 
the world. In the philosophical romance of the Valen- 
tinians, Sophia, the last or youngest of the iEons, is said 
to have hurried forward with eager and presumptuous im- 
petuosity to unite herself with Eternal Perfection — (" k€kol- 
v(ovr)G-0cu to) ircLTpi to) reXeta)") — and her ineffectual attempt 
to grasp the unattainable became an expressive allegory of 
the soul's alienation and vain longing to return. For there 
is a necessary discrepancy between the Absolute and indi- 
vidual consciousness ; so that when the latter, obeying the 
instincts of its spiritual nature, would seize or comprehend 
the former (" KaTcCkafteiv to (jLeyeOo? avrov"), the limited 
nature betrays its inadequacy, and falling short of Pleroma 
or the " fullness" of the Absolute, remains, as it were, out- 
side in the shadowy precincts of " Kenoma." The passage 
before us deals with the same class of conceptions. Here 
too, " Kenoma" is opposed to " Pleroma," equality with 
God being provisionally considered as a wrongful seizure 
rightfully to be obtained only through certain divinely pre- 
appointed gradations of vacuity and humiliation. Here, 
however, the speculative idea takes a moral turn ; the 
seizure which is attempted but fails in gnostic theory 
is in " Philippians " suppressed, and the humiliation is a 



THE PHILIPPIANS. 



249 



voluntary act performed for a divine purpose. 1 But then 
the ideas which are quite natural in the metaphysical drama 
of gnosticism, become to a certain extent incongruous when 
applied to Christ. In speculative matters a certain con- 
summation may be conceived as simultaneously rightful 
and impossible ; consciousness and realization may fitly 
stand apart, and there is no paradox in considering an 
object in one sense gained, in another still to be contended 
for. But an awkwardness arises in applying this simul- 
taneity of possession and non-possession to a voluntary 
agent. Christ being supposed to be already in virtual 
possession of the divinity which he abstains from asserting, 
— indeed his human form is said (ver. 7) to have been mere 
Docetic "seeming," — there is nothing which necessarily 
suggests the notion of " a/37ray/xo? " or wrongful appro- 
priation ; indeed his inherent divinity is already implied in 
the expression of " fXQpfyr) Qeov," 2 which is a technical 
gnostic phrase intimating divine equivalency or " tcroTT??." 
Or if it be said that the exaltation of Christ was only to be 
attained by means of a previous moral trial or humiliation , 
as implied in the word "wherefore" (ver. 9), then it may 
be asked how in consistency can Christ be said to have 
waived or abdicated by anticipation a privilege which he 
did not and could not possess except by fulfilling the con- 
ditions of obtaining it? These incongruities point to a 
derivative appropriation of gnostic ideas by the present 
writer for his own peculiar purposes, similar to that occur- 
ring in Ephesians and Colossians ; it indicates an epoch in 
Christian speculative development later certainly than St. 
Paul, but still before the time when these ideas began to be 
felt as heretic ally dangerous. 

Various other circumstances are enumerated by Baur, 
indicating the post-apostolic origin of the epistle. An 
appeal to sentimental feeling mingles with a want of 

1 u 'EavTov Kevovv" instead of u eivai ev rep KepccfiaTi." 

2 " Form of God." See Baur, Paulus, p.'462. 



250 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

arrangement and a monotonous repetition, of which the 
writer seems himself not unconscious ; as where he assures 
the Philippians that to repeat the same things was no 
grievance to him or them (ch. iii. 1), and when enforcing 
with a tear (iii. 18) remonstrances already made. There is an 
absence of special motive and clear definition of the intended 
adversaries 1 (uncertainly alluded to whether in Rome or in 
Philippi), who are denounced with a bitterness of invective 2 
ill agreeing with the conciliatory disposition evinced by the 
apostle himself in his later letters, and serving only the 
purpose of introducing the person of the supposed writer 
in advantageous contrast with the pretensions of the parties 
denounced. 3 The unrecompensed independence asserted in 
Corinthians (i. 9, 15), conflicts with the regular donations 
here attributed to the Philippians ; 4 and the apostle's reta- 
liatory hypothetical boasting is parodied by the later writer 
in a way 5 making the whole paragraph appear forced and 
out of place. But there is one circumstance which more 
especially betrays a post-apostolic origin, namely, the 
allusion to Clemens Romanus. The account 6 of the fur- 
therance of the Gospel in Rome through St. Paul's cap- 
tivity, may be natural enough ; but this is mixed up with 
other data, especially the above-mentioned circumstance, 
giving an apocryphal air to the whole. It is stated that 
St. Paul, who, according to Acts xxviii. 16, was committed 



1 "What can be more vague than the description, iii. 18? and it may be 
asked whether the " evil "workers" of iii. 2, are anything more than a copy of 
2 Cor. xi. 13 ? 

2 Conip. the expression " dogs" and the use of KaraTOfir) for irepiTOfxr}. 

3 Baur's Paulus, p. 465, and 2 Cor. xi. 18, the expression "glorying after 
the flesh," being mistaken by the writer of Philippians for a glorying in cir- 
cumcision, etc. ; — the " virep eya' of ver. 23 is repeated in the " eyw fxaAKov" 
here, iii. 4. 

4 Ch. iv. 10-16. The writer exaggerates the exceptional case mentioned 
in 2 Cor. si. 9, assuming an original arrangement and continued liberality of 
the Philippians during the whole time since his quitting Macedonia, and gra- 
tuitously adding certain instances of relief supposed to have been sent to 
Thessalonica, but strangely enough omitting the details of the principal 
assistance received at Corinth. 

s Comp. 2 Cor. xi. 18, with Philip, iii. 4, etc. 6 Phil. i. 12. 



THE PHILIPPIANS. 



251 



to the custody of the captain of the guard, had created a 
favourable impression in regard to Christianity throughout 
the Praetorium and the public generally j 1 at the close we 
are given to understand that among the converts were in- 
cluded several of " Caesar's household ;" and there can be 
little doubt that this statement refers to the Clement men- 
tioned among the " fellow-labourers" of the apostle in 
ch. iv. 3. Now the self-refuting legend of Clement is a 
growth of the second century. It has of late been re- 
peatedly 2 and thoroughly discussed ; the result being that 
the only historical basis of the story is the Flavius Clemens 
mentioned by Suetonius as having been executed by his 
near relative Domitian for " irreligion," indolence, and un- 
fitness for public affairs. These epithets are the Koman 
way of describing a Christian ; 3 and the importance 
naturally attached to the death of so illustrious a victim — 
a man of consular dignity — sufficiently accounts for the 
legendary enlargement and distortion of the real circum- 
stances. Prodigies are reported to have alarmed Rome for 
eight months following his execution ; ere long the whole 
circumstances were transferred to apostolic times, the cousin 
of Domitian became a relative of Tiberius, supposed, in 
spite of the conflicting data of the first (so-styled) Clemen- 
tine epistle, 4 to have been appointed bishop of Rome by his 
friend and companion St .Peter. Later ideas as to epis- 
copal propriety could not allow the imaginary bishop to 
have been the consular husband of Domitilla ; his person 
was, therefore, divided, the consul retaining his wife and 
family name of Flavius, and leaving the residuary " Cle- 
ment" with the honours of martyrdom to be exclusively 

1 Not " in other places," as the English has it. 

2 Hilgenf eld's Apostol. Vater. 1853. Lipsius de Clem. Rom. Epistola 
prima, 1853. Volkmar, in the Tubingen Jahrbiicher, vol. xv. p. 297. 1856. 

3 " Contemptissima inertia," says Suetonius. Dio Cassius, 67, 14, explains 
the charge of " aOeor-qs" hy the -words, " -37077 ruv lovdaiwv," on which see 
Volkmar, ib. p. 307. 

4 "Which supplies the strongest evidence that there were no Roman bishops 
till after a.d. 140. See Volkmar, ibid p. 300, etc. 



252 



TUBINGEN RESULTS. 



appropriated by the bishop. And then the Christian story 
itself split into two conflicting phases ; Panline tradition 
making Clement fourth in order after Peter instead of his 
immediate successor. 1 Yet his apostolic character was in- 
sisted on in spite of chronology, and he was ultimately 
claimed as Paul's disciple as well as Peter's. And thus 
Clement appears as Pauline helpmate or " avvepyos" in 
" Philippians ;" just as St. Paul is elsewhere made to claim 
Mark as fellow-labourer, and Peter to make overtures 
through the Paulinist Silvanus, so here the name of 
Clement becomes a symbol of that Eoman Catholic 
syncretism of the second century, in which the ideas of 
Peter and Paul were popularly harmonised and blended. 
It is needless to say that the cousin of Domitian could not 
have been really St. Paul's companion. But at the date 
of the epistle the legend of Clement was already current ; 
the cause of Christianity was generally flourishing, and 
hence the repeated self-congratulations of the writer, who 
in the circumstances of the consular Clemens finds a 
colourable and creditable opening for the gospel in Rome. 
From the Prsetorium it would naturally extend to the 
palace, thence to the whole city f- and Clement, amplified 
into plurality as " they of Caesar's household," salutes the 
Philippians in the name of the metropolitan church. 

The Growth of Asiatic Christianity. 

The change which ended in Catholicism proceeded simul- 
taneously in fact and in idea, as an organization and as a 
theory. Scarcely had St. Paul opened the way for un- 
limited Gentile conversion by means of his doctrine of 
" grace," than the stricter party eagerly availed themselves 

1 Eusebius, H. E. iii. 13, 15, calculates Clement the bishop to have been 
cotemporary with the consul. Epiphanius tries to reconcile the two con- 
flicting traditions by making Linus and Anacletus the episcopal colleagues 
of St. Peter himself! 

2 " Aotirois Traai." 



THE GROWTH OF ASIATIC CHRISTIANITY. 



253 



of the opportunity to give to their own views a coordinate 
extension by superadding to the simple requirement of 
baptism 1 Judaical forms and conditions. St. Paul's own 
letters shew how diligently his footsteps were followed 
up by persons wishing to substitute a new yoke for gospel 
freedom ; tradition symbolically recording this Judaical 
reaction in the story of Peter pursuing Simon Magus, and 
eventually superseding St. Paul as apostle of the Gentiles. 2 
A thorough coalition was impossible so long as men's 
minds were confused by the idea of dissension between the 
apostles ; and hence while dismissing as unhistorical the 
inversion of character and language attributed to Peter 
and Paul in Acts, we should bear in mind that this un- 
historical misrepresentation was itself an historical neces- 
sity, modifying the retrospect of the past into accord with 
the requisitions of the present. 3 It must also be recollected 
that St. Paul himself, while rejecting Mosaic law, by no 
means repudiated spiritual or universal law, the general 
continuity of revelation, or the connection of Christianity 
with the Old Testament ; so that there existed from the 
first a basis of conciliation and approximation. Proceeding 
on this hint the Epistle of James endeavours to adjust the 
ideas of faith and works which St. Paul had contrasted and 
opposed, and to appropriate whatever seemed practically 
applicable in Pauline theory under the comprehensive 
name of " royal law," the law of love or of liberty, etc. 
The Epistle to the Hebrews, 4 in common with other secon- 

1 See Gal. iii. 27. 

2 Clem. Homilies 3, 59, and the prefixed Epistola Clementis, ch. i. A 
similar case really occurred at Ephesus in the installation of John after St. 
Paul's retreat. Euseb. H. E. 3, 23 and 31, etc. 

3 Baur, Christenthum v. Kirehe, i. pp.. 111-114. — Hence the parallelism as 
well as interchange of character between the apostles, the entire suppression of 
the Antioch dispute, the visionary appointment in both instances, the con- 
cession in the case of Timothy of what was refused on the part of Titus, etc. 

4 On " Hebrews," see Baur's Christenthum v. Kirehe, vol. i. pp. 96 and 
292. Also K. B. Kostlin, Der Evang. u. die Briefe Johannis, pp. 352, 387 ; 
and three papers in the TheoL Jahrbucher for 1853 and 1854., vols. 12 
and 13. 



254 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

dary Pauline, Petrine, and Clementine writings, 1 treats 
Christianity on the same footing of a spiritual or perfect 
Judaism which it is already assumed to be in Eevelations ; 
employing the allegorical method of Alexandrian theology 
to elevate the reactionary Judaist to the conception of a 
higher faith ; asserting the free principle of St. Paul even 
under Judaical symbols, and establishing the universality 
of the religion on the supreme personal claims of the 
founder. Christian theory here takes objective ground ; it 
is no longer an internal change, or primarily even a law, 
but a sacrificial reconciliation effected through a priest ; 
although a new system, it is only so in the sense of com- 
pleting the old under a new leader. This Judaically 
modified Paulinism exercised a wide influence ; it recurs 
not only in the speculative recognition of a latent Chris- 
tianity under Judaical types in the epistle of Barnabas, but 
also in several Eoman works of somewhat later date, such 
as the first Petrine and first Clementine epistles, in which 
faith and works, before advocated more or less apart, are 
carefully poised and coordinated. 2 In Asia as well as in 
Eome the stubbornness of Judaism yielded ; compromise 
and concession did their work ; and to the series of Eoman 
writings issued for the purpose of promoting amalgamation 
under the names of Luke, Clement, or Peter, corresponds 
a parallel series of literary efforts presumably emanating 
from Eastern sources under the titular sanction of Paul 
and of John. Interweaving Pauline elements with Ju- 
daical, organising with speculative tendencies, the latter 
form a natural introduction to the essentially catholic 
idealism of which the fourth gospel may be regarded as the 
completion. Asiatic idealism had two types ; the sensuous 
fanaticism and chiliasm of the Montanist, and the more 
refined metaphysical speculations engendering the theo- 
logical disputes which eventually subsided in the Athan- 

1 Comp. Philip, iii. 3 ; 1 Peter ii. 9, 10 ; 1 Clement, eh. 32. 

2 See especially 1 Clem. ch. 32, 33. 



THE GROWTH OF ASIATIC CHRISTIANITY. 255 

asian Trinity. The process was influenced by the growth of 
gnosticism, which in the course of the second century began 
to assume an unmanageable or hostile attitude ; and the ques- 
tion now was as to the mode and measure in which Catholic 
theology was to admit or to reject this disturbing influence. 
Here the subtlety of the Greek mind found appropriate oc- 
cupation ; and while Eome displayed its characteristic apti- 
tude for political management in maturing the forms of au- 
thority/ Greece again manifested its speculative ability in 
carefully settling the definitions of theological doctrine. 
The problem to which the Grseco-Asiatic mind addressed 
itself was especially that of the nature and relations of 
the Divine Being. It was solved partly by elaborating 
the spiritual principle of Montanistic "prophecy" into a 
distinct form or hypostasis ; and partly by the elevation of 
the Christian Messiah through a course of gradual amplifi- 
cation into approximation or identification with God. For 
even Montanism, however in itself incompatible with eccle- 
siastical discipline, contributed to the church system one of 
its chief supports ; not only enriching its store of doctrine 
by individualising the "Pneuma" or " Paraclete," but 
suggesting the self-appropriation of this " spirit" by the 
church as a perennial foundation of infallible authority. 
Of the way in which the claim was ecclesiastically applied 
several indications occur in Ephesians and Colossians, 
where, especially in the former, 2 may be traced the charac- 
teristic Montanist notion of "new" or Christian "prophecy" 
considered as the actual form of revelation and religion. 
But Asiatic activity in promoting ecclesiastical interests was 
chiefly shewn in advocating the absolute independence and 
superiority of the religion as evinced by the excellence and 
dignity of its founder, against the reactionary prejudices 
of certain opponents, who in Colossians appear to have 

1 As exemplified in the Pastorals, the Homilies, and the Letters of Ignatius. 

2 Ephes. i. 17; ii. 20 ; iii. 5 ; iv. 11, 12, 13. See Baur's Paulus, p. 437, 
and Tuh. Theol. Jahrbiicher, vol. iii. p. 379. 



256 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

been of the extreme Judaising party, or of those who were 
afterwards stigmatized as " Ebionites." Their charac- 
teristics are similar to those contemplated in Galatians, 
Kornans, Hebrews, etc., a childish attachment to external 
ordinances, such as circumcision, washings and purifica- 
tions, peculiar meats and drinks, celibacy, the observance 
of new moons and Sabbaths, and especially a superstitious 
commemoration and worship of angels. 1 Hence the main 
points controverted. Starting on the broad Pauline ground 
of the abrogation of the law and of Christian universalism, 
these epistles urge the convert to advance to the full per- 
ception of his high calling ; to quit worldly rudiments, and 
to realise the idea of Christ not only as pre-eminent high 
priest, but as supreme ruler of the universe. Jewish 
monotheism might allow that Christ stood exceedingly 
high in the scale of being, that he was an angel or arch- 
angel, 2 but could not admit him to be God. The argu- 
ment here conducted in the name of St. Paul tends to 
remove this barrier by claiming more and more on behalf 
of the peculiar object of Christian veneration. " Hebrews" 
had elevated him above Moses, 3 and declared his superiority 
to angels, yet still only the more to evince the pre-eminence 
of the great high priest. Colossians gives him a more 
distinctly original superiority as a transcendental being, in 
one view indeed within creation's limit, yet in another 
beyond it, and as the gnostic " Pleroma" carrying on 
visibly in the church a reconciling and healing agency 
virtually coextensive with the universe, and which is really 
and ultimately God's. 4 In the fourth gospel all the 
scattered elements of theocratic unification are carefully 
gathered up, and Christ as " Monogenes," stands wholly 
on the side of God, his incarnation being only an incidental 

1 " lovSaiovs \arpevovras AyyeXois." Clem. Al. Strom. 6, 5, p. 760. See 
Justin's Apol. i. 6, and in Trypho frequently, as well as in Hebrews i. 4, 5. 

2 Epiphan. Hser. 30, 3, and 16. Tertullian de Came Christi. ch. 14. 

3 Ch. iii. See Epiphan. Hser. 30, 18. 

4 See Baur's Christenthum v. Kirche, vol. i, pp. 296, 297. 



THE GROWTH OF ASIATIC CHRISTIANITY. 257 

circumstance enabling- him to express more completely 
" the glory" of the Father. The theory is very similar to 
that of Colossians ; and it would be difficult in either docu- 
ment to say how far the prerogatives of the Divine Being 
are original or conferred ; x whether the " fullness" is imme- 
diate and absolute, or only incipient and awaiting com- 
pletion through the church or congregation. 2 The main 
difference is in the form, and in the adoption by the gospel 
of the notion of the "Word" or Logos, expressing that 
idea of emanation which here 3 as well as among the better 
educated Jews of Alexandria was resorted to in order to 
retain the invisible God in virtual connection with the world, 
while removing Him personally beyond its contaminations. 
The theory was well suited to interweave all that was 
valuable in gnosticism with the narrative of the life of 
Jesus while discarding its superfluities. The "Word" 
is already a predicate of Christ in the Apocalypse ; 4 
" Hebrews " more emphatically introduces the personifica- 
tion with its special Philonian attributes into Christian 
terminology, yet without any distinct identification of the 
Son as "Logos ;" 5 in the fourth gospel the Son's unity 
and divinity are under this convenient appellation pressed 
to the utmost allowable extreme ; 6 even while retaining 
his human character, he is said to be already in heaven, 7 
already immanent in the Father, and instead of undergoing 
any humiliation as in Philippians, displays in his very 
humanity only surer evidences of glory. 

1 See John v. 22, 26, 27 ; xvii. 2, 7, 22, and Col. i. 19. 

2 John xvii. 5; Coloss ii. 10. 3 Seech, i. 18. 

4 Ch. xix. 13 ; and comp. "\oyos aA.7j0eias" in James i. 18. 

5 The Son being here connected with the "Pneuma." Seech, i. 3; iv. 
12, 13 ; ix. 14. The Son too is strictly subordinate, and the idea fluctuates 
between emanation and appointment. See i. 3 ; ii. 7 ; v. 5. 

6 A certain amount of personal difference and subordination was required 
by dramatic propriety, and also in order to enable the divine "word" to 
become the medium of a progressive revelation ; hence the use of the preposi- 
tions " eis" and u Trpos" followed by the accusative, indicating movement and 
approximation, in ch. i. 1 and 18 ; yet at times the divine immanence seems 
to be asserted absolutely (ch. v. 18; x. 30, 38 ; xiv. 9; xvii. 21.) 

7 Ch. iii. 13. 

17 



258 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

Authenticity of the Fourth Gospel. 

It has been before stated how, when the authenticity of 
the fourth gospel was first questioned by Bretschneider, 
incipient doubt merged in the general current of opinion, 
which, at the time, set the more strongly in favour of this 
gospel, in consequence of the serious apprehensions begin- 
ning to be felt for the others. Eichhorn, admitting dis- 
crepancies in the accounts, paused on the threshold of the 
subject ; and the sentimental preference of Schleiermacher, 
Lucke, and De Wette, treating the anomalous gospel as 
the last stay and refuge of faith 1 could only be provisional. 
Strauss clearly pointed out the incompatibility of the gos- 
pel accounts, but found the evidence insufficient to enable 
him to award with confidence the palm of credibility. He 
began by expressing doubts as to the fourth gospel ; in his 
third edition he says that renewed study, aided by De 
"Wette's commentary and Neander's " Life of Jesus," had 
changed his former view ; in the fourth edition he cancels 
the doubts expressed as to his doubts, thus hesitating be- 
tween two verdicts, retracting, and then withdrawing his 
retractation, and at last giving no positive opinion whatever. 
C. H. Weisse, in 1838, revived Bretschneider' s objections 
to the received view about the gospel, insisting on the 
superior credibility of the synoptics ; and in 1840, Lutzel- 
berger 2 disputed the apostolic origin of all the Johannean 
writings. The problem was one upon which, in the 
opinion of eminent theologians, 3 the very existence of 
Christianity depended ; yet, unless mere feeling were 
allowed to decide, it was still an open one ; and Baur per- 
ceived that the only way of effectually passing beyond 

1 Ultima restabat quam toto corpore mater 
Tota veste tegens, unam minimamque relinque, 
De multis minimam posco, clamavit, et unam. 

2 " Die Kirchliche tradition iiber den Apostel Johannes u. seine Schriften 
in ihrer Grundlosigkeit nackgewiesen." Leipsig, 1840. 

3 See the preface to Bunsen's Bibelwerk, and Hase's Sendschreiben an 
Herrn Dr. Yon Baur. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 259 

Strauss was to take up the enquiry where he left it, and to 
make sure and strong the ground already felt by him to be 
treacherous and unsafe. 

Have we, it must be asked, any valid grounds, either of 
testimony or internal probability, for believing the gospel 
to be the work of the apostle John ? From the time of 
Irenaeus, four gospels, selected out of many others, have 
been admitted as genuine by the fathers of the church ; 
but how accept as conclusive the opinions of men avowedly 
guided in their literary judgments by mere fanciful con- 
siderations of analogical propriety deduced from the four 
winds or four regions of the world; and who not only 
quote as authoritative " Scrip ture" works long since re- 
nounced as apocryphal, but differ as to these matters from 
each other, and even from themselves P 1 Papias, Polycarp, 
Poly crates, are here silent ; and the first authors unequi- 
vocally appealing to the fourth gospel are Theophilus, 2 
Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria, at the 
close of the second or beginning of the third century ; and 
we shall be surprised to find what very feeble evidence 
was once deemed sufficient to establish the inference in 
question. The seeming parallelisms met with in writers 
before Justin have been shewn 3 to be fallacious ; and, 
indeed, the age and genuineness of these supposed " testi- 
monies" are themselves questionable. It were arbitrary to 
assume a citation where verbal agreement is wanting, and 
no citation is expressed ; or to infer identity of authorship 

1 Thus Tertullian in one place quotes "Hernias" as "Scripture," in 
another contemptuously rejects it as impure and apocryphal. See, too, 
Irenaeus Adv. Hser. iv. 20, 2. Irenaeus moreover (ib. iii. 11, 9), expressly 
says that the fourth gospel was in his day a subject of dispute. 

2 Ad. Autol. ii. 22. 

3 See two papers by Zeller in the Theol. Jahrbucher for 1845 and 1847 : — 
" Die aussern Zeugnisse uber das Daseyn u. das Ursprung des vierten Evan- 
gelium's;" and " Einige weitere Bemerkungen," etc. Also Baur's Evangelien, 
p. 349. Eusebius, indeed (H. E. 3, 39), says of Papias that he quoted ("KexpTjTcu 
HapTvpicus") the first Epistle of John; hut that he quoted it by name remains 
uncertain, for Eusebius says the same of Polycarp in regard to first Peter ; 
although no express quotation is now to be found. 



260 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

from those general similarities of language or idea which 
often occur casually in cotemporary or nearly cotemporary 
writings. For instance, the general doctrine of the Logos, 
— its proceeding from the Father, its creative function, its 
unity and equality, and at the same time diversity and 
subordination to the Father, — are common to the gospel, 
to the Montanism of the second century, and to the Plato- 
nising Apologists. Justin speaks of the Logos " Mono- 
genes," of its incarnation, etc. ; and there are several 
expressions of the same kind in Tatian and Athenagoras. 
But this no more proves quotation than do the similar 
expressions in Philo ; and the passage in Justin's Apology 
(i. 61) resembling John iii. 3, 5, appears to be derived by 
him, as well as the author of the Clementines, from an 
older gospel now deemed apocryphal. Indeed, the marked 
difference of idea and expression in passages referring to 
one and the same subject is in itself a proof that Justin was 
ignorant of the fourth gospel ; 1 and it may reasonably be 
asked why, in these cases of assumed citation, no express 
reference to apostolical authority occurs ; why the allusion 
is only to current sayings or " eiprj/jLeva," and why the sense 
intended by the evangelist is not adhered to ? 2 The " tes- 
timonies " supposed to have been recently discovered, and 
by some received so triumphantly, turn out to be equally 
inconclusive. That in the "Philosophoumena" leaves us 
uncertain whether Basilides himself be referred to, or only 
his followers, who certainly, as well as the Yalentinians, 
made eager use of the fourth gospel on its appear- 

1 Schwegler, Montanismus, p. 184. Justin's ignorance of the fourth gospel 
is clearly indicated by his omitting any allusion to it on occasions where it 
would have been obviously important to have made one ; as in Trypho, ch. 100, 
where, although industriously collecting all the known utterances of Jesus 
illustrating his relation to the Father and the doctrine of the Logos, he dis- 
covers only Matt. xi. 27; xvi. 16. Luke i. 35, and ix. 22. In Trypho, ch. 
Ill, although making the 0. T. Passover a type of Christ, he adheres to the 
synoptical account as to the day ; and it is remarkable how in ch. 40 the 
tpyical resemblance is made out, omitting altogether the lance- thrust on which 
the fourth gospel lays so much stress. 

2 As, for instance, in Ignat. Phil. 7. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE POUUTH GOSPEL. 



261 



ance ; T and the garbled citation at the end of the Clementines 
lately published by Dressel, would only prove that about 
a.d. 160, the time of the probable origin of the gospel, the 
work, though not received as apostolical, was found suffi- 
ciently suitable and acceptable to be quoted even by writers 
opposed to its general doctrine. The later essays of Baur, 
Yolkmar, and Hilgenfeld thoroughly expose the sophistical 
attempts of Liicke, Hase, Weisse, Weisacker, Ewald, etc., to 
escape the difficulty of the subject. 2 And it may be asked 
why the Montanists made no reference to the fourth gospel 
in their controversies with the Church about the Paraclete ; 
why no allusion occurs in the course of the dispute to a 
work ostensibly sanctioning a leading doctrine, when at the 
same time constant reference is made to the Apocalypse in 
regard to the less important matter of chiliasm ? The 
fact is that the Apocalypse lost credit with the Church in 
consequence of the advantage it gave to its opponents in 
these very disputes ; while in the meantime the gospel 
grew in popularity, as adapting the very notions, such as 
those of the "second coming" and the Paraclete, which 
had before encouraged the disorders of individual fanatic- 
ism, to the promotion of Catholic interests. 

Let us next ask whether it be likely, from what we 
otherwise know of the apostle, that he wrote the gospel. 
The earliest historical notice of him is in the second 
chapter of Gralatians, where he appears as one of the 
apostolic leaders or "pillars," in more or less open anti- 
pathy and hostility to St. Paul. Then we have allusions 
to a trying contention of St. Paul with certain " adver- 
saries" and "beasts" at Ephesus, 3 followed, as appears 
from documents preserved in Eusebius, by the victory and 
triumphant installation of John on the contested arena as 
hierarch of Asiatic Christendom. 4 Then we find him re- 

1 See Baur, in the Tub. Theol. Jahrbucher, xii. pp. 148-151. 

2 See Volkmar : "Em neu entdecktes Zeugniss," etc. Tub. Theol., 
Jour. 13, 3, p. 458. 3 i q ov , xv> 32 ; xv i. 9. 

4 Euseb., H. E., v. 24 ; also iii. 23 and 31. 



262 



TUBINGEN RESULTS. 



ferred to by the Asiatic presbyters 1 as chief authority on 
millenarianism, and as the consistently millenarian author 
of the Apocalypse, which contains (as may now be confi- 
dently asserted) so many covert insinuations against St. 
Paul. But the doctrine of the gospel is decidedly anti- 
millenarian 2 and anti- Jewish ; Pauline ideas are the very 
basis of it ; whereas the Apocalypse is replete with Jewish 
feeling and eschatological imagery, of which in the gospel 
no vestige occurs. The two writings imply fundamentally 
distinct theories ; so that it has become an admitted axiom 
that, though perhaps in a certain sense geographically 
allied, their authors must be different. 3 The national pre- 
judice and externalism of one are incompatible with the 
spiritualism and universalism of the other ; and the tradi- 
tion authenticating the Apocalypse being stronger than that 
for the gospel, even orthodoxy, when confronted with unan- 
swerable facts, should be content to waive its sympathetic 
feelings. JSTor is there anything to countenance the notion 
that the Apocalyptic writer underwent a mental trans- 
formation, converting the rancour of the visionary pam- 
phleteer into the calm transcendentalism of the evangelist. 
St. John must have been already sixty years of age at the 
time of the composition of the Apocalypse ; and, so far as we 
collect from tradition, he remained consistently true to the 
bigotry and intolerance of Judaism. Hence in the gospels 
the epithet " Boanerges" is given to the ambitious candidate 
for apostolic precedency, who so far mistook the real cha- 
racter of Christianity as to invoke fire from heaven upon 
the Samaritan cities, and wanted to prohibit the beneficial 
ministry of those who were not of his own party. 4 On the 
other hand, it is very remarkable that the evangelist, how- 
ever anxious to asseverate the truth of what he states, does 

1 In Ireneeus v. 33. 2 See e.g. ch. v. 25. 

3 See Liicke, Offenbar., ed. 1852, p. 747 ; De Wette, Lehrbuch der Ein- 
leitung, ed. 1848, p. 388, sec. 189. 
i Mark ix. 38 ; Luke ix. 49>. 



AUTHENTICITY OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 263 

not give himself out as eye-witness, but only refers to the 
testimony of a third person as eye-witness, who was per- 
fectly willing and able to tell the truth ; l referring, no 
doubt, to the forms of attestation (fiaprvpta Iyaov) given 
in Revelations (i. 7) a fact which he evidently considered 
of the highest importance (xix. 37). The eye-witness is 
not said to have himself written anything, but only to be 
the unimpeachable authority on whose evidence the written 
account depends ; and though certainly a writer may in 
many cases allowably speak of himself in the third person, 
it would be entirely inappropriate, if intending to repre- 
sent himself as eye-witness, to say, " he who saw bare 
record, " instead of, "I saw, and now testify what I saw ;" 
thus awkwardly appealing to his own past attestation, as 
if he were not himself present to renew and to confirm it. 2 
It seems inconceivable that a writer who in the Apocalypse 
repeatedly refers to himself by name, should here, where 
so anxious to convince, affect an indirect style of address 
and a superfluous incognito, when his object would have 
been better answered by standing openly forward in his 
proper person. Nor can the suppression of the name be 
ascribed to a modesty which does not appear to have be- 
longed to the apostle's character, 3 nor indeed to that of 
any one who should have so constantly made himself indi- 
vidually prominent as " the beloved disciple ;" a designa- 
tion, which, however appropriate in the mouth of his 
master or of a third person, makes an entirely different im- 
pression when supposed to be uttered by himself. 4 The 

1 Ch. xix. 35 ; comp. xx. 30. 

2 Comp. ch. i. 34 and 1 John i. 2 ; iv. 14. 
a Matt. xx. 21, 22. 

4 See Baur's Christenthum v. Kirche, vol. i., p. 133 ; Hilgenfeld in the 
Tubingen Jahrbiicher, vol. xvi., p. 532 ; and Volkmar in the Zeitschrift 
fur wiss. Theologie, iii., 3, p. 293. The evangelist to a certain extent un- 
doubtedly identifies himself with the illustrious head of Asiatic Christianity, 
as speaking in his spirit, and with his authority : but there is no personal 
identification; and Dr. Steiz, in the Theol. Stud, und Krit., 1859, p. 497, 
fails to establish that " eKeivos" (ch. xix. 35) means the first person singular. 
The passages referred to by Meyer, as ch. i. 14, or xxi. 24, refer, like the 



264 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

author puts forth Ms work anonymously, in full reliance on 
the force of the unanswerable internal evidence it addresses 
to the sympathies of congenial souls ; speaking of himself 
not as an apostle, but only as one of the general Christian 
body, 1 any one of whom might be said to have spiritually 
" seen the glory" brought home by means of faith to their 
own convictions. And even when at a later time 2 it 
seemed desirable to assert the direct apostolic authorship of 
this noble product of Christian inspiration, and in this 
view to superadd the words " jpa^jra^ ravTa" in a polemical 
appendix to " fxaprvpcov Tre.pi tovtwv" the actual writer still 
stands apart from the alleged apostolic " witness," the dis- 
ciple who " wrote" is pointedly separated from the "we" 
believing his testimony, and there is no such identification 
of them as is claimed in the Apocalypse. 

The Passover Controversy. 

And there is yet another point which is still more seri- 
ously menacing to the authenticity of the gospel. First 
adverted to in this relation by Bretschneider, it was after- 
wards more fully developed by Schwegler in his work on 
" Montanism," (p. 191). In the disputes about Passover 
observance which agitated the second century, so little 
thought of now, but then considered of such vital import- 
ance as to have occasioned the disruption of Christendom, 
the Eastern Christians appealed to the synoptical gospels 

present one, to the general Christian consciousness ; just as Lute, who was 
certainly no eye-witness, speaks of the fulfilment of the gospel facts " among 
us." The words " 6 kccpaKws /x<;p.apTvpr)Ke" may have been suggested by the 
usual Johannean formula " jxaprvpia \r\crov" (see Apoc. i. 5, iii. 14, xx. 4; 
1 John i. 1, 3; v. 9, 10). Comp. Weisse, Evangelienfrage, p. 61; Hil- 
genfeld, Zeitschrift f. wiss. Theol., vol. ii., p. 414 ; and Paschastreit, p. 152, 
note. The appeal sometimes made to " Presbyter John," is justly termed by 
Volkmar a silly (geisteskere) expedient. 

1 Ch. i. 14, 16. There is here no contrast between the writer and the com- 
munity addressed, as in 1 John i. 1-3. 

2 John xxi. 24. The twenty-first chapter is generally admitted to be a 
later addition to the gospel, which terminates naturally with the twentieth 
chapter. See Tubingen Journal, vol. x., 205. Baur, Evangelien, pp. 235, 
321. 



THR PASSOVER CONTROVERSY. 265 

and to the personal authority of John, in support of their 
old established custom of observing the anniversary of the 
Jewish Passover in the evening between the 14th and 15th 
of the month Nisan ; while the Western Church and a party 
in the Eastern, building on the notion promulgated by St. 
Paul and adopted by the so-called Gospel of John, that Christ 
was himself the Passover, 1 commemorated the crucifixion 
about the same time of year by a fast, breaking their fast 
for the first time on the grand festival of the resurrection 
on Easter Sunday. In a conference on the subject which 
seems to have occurred about a.d. 160, the Roman Bishop 
Anicetus and the Smyrniote Bishop Polycarp tried in vain 
to come to an agreement. " Anicetus/' says Irenaeus, 2 
"failed to persuade Polycarp not to 'observe' {i.e., the 
Jewish Passover or an analogous Christian ceremony), as 
having always observed it in company with John and the 
other apostles of the Lord; nor on the other hand, could 
Polycarp persuade Anicetus to ' observe/ the latter con- 
sidering himself bound by the uniform practice of preced- 
ing presbyters the other way." Some time after 3 the 
Asiatic church was internally convulsed about this matter ; 
Melito, Bishop of Sardis, taking one side, and Apollinaris, 
Bishop of Hierapolis, the other. And when on a subse- 
quent occasion (about a.d. 190) the grand quarrel broke 
out between the Roman bishop Victor, and the churches 
of Lesser Asia headed by Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, 
the latter made a memorable and dignified appeal in justi- 
fication of his refusal of conformity to the unvarying prac- 
tice of all the most distinguished heroes of Asiatic Christi- 
anity, to Polycarp, Melito, Philip, and John himself, as 
having all observed the Passover on the 14th day of the 
month, " according to the gospel." How then, in opposi- 
tion to the authority of a man so thoroughly versed in 
precedents of antiquity (for Polycrates, at the time of 

1 I Cor. v. 7. Comp. x. 16, and xi. 23. 

2 In Eusebius H. E. v. 24. s About a.d. 170. 



266 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

uttering this solemn protest, could already boast sixty-five 
years of Christian experience, and stood eighth of his family 
in the list of bishops), can authenticity be claimed for an 
alleged Gospel of John expressly sanctioning the contrary 
Western practice, and entirely subverting the established 
order and significance of the Eastern. For whereas the 
Easterns, celebrating the Passover on the 14th, postponed 
the commemoration of Christ's death to the day following, 
i.e., the first day of unleavened bread, 1 the Roman party 
substituted for the old form of observance a new and incon- 
sistent one, disregarding and displacing Jewish precedent, 
and merging the Passover reminiscences of the supper in 
the higher import of the crucifixion and resurrection. And 
in this the gospel perfectly coincides with the Roman view, 
carefully placing the last supper "before the Passover," 2 
and the crucifixion on the Passover. 3 For, as if to obviate 

1 See Apollinaris, first fragment. 

2 Chap. xiii. 1. Cotnp. xiii. 29; xviii. 28. It was the "last supper," 
falling on the night of the betrayal (1 Cor. xi. 23),. only it was not the Pass- 
over ; and it should be noted that the expression here is " supper," not " the 
supper." Baur notices that Luke (ch. xxii. 15, 19) takes an intermediate 
position as to this matter between the first gospel and the fourth, mentioning 
a longing on the part of Christ to eat the Passover, and then suddenly breaking 
off, leaving it doubtful whether he eat or no (Das Christenthum, p. 139). 

3 The alleged difficulty of placing the arrest and trial of Jesus at the 
very time of tbe celebration of so important a religious anniversary as 
the Passover (see National Review for July, 1857, p. 117. Bleek's Beitrage, 
p. 141) is satisfactorily met by Jost on the ground that the whole circumstances 
of the arrest were an irregular and tumultuary proceeding (see Hilgenfeld, 
Paschastreit, p. 155).. Another difficulty is how to understand Matthew's 
"Preparation" day (xxvii. 62) in relation to his own "irpccTri afr/xoov" and to 
John xix. 44, 31, 42. The " Preparation for the Passover" was undoubtedly 
on the 14th Msan, the day of the Passover feast as represented in the fourth 
gospel ; but this is very different from the " Preparation for the Sabbath" 
described in the synoptics (Mark xv. 42. Luke xxiii. 54. See Joseph. Ant. 
xvi. 6, 2). The fourth gospel evidently makes use of this ambiguity in order to 
adapt its own peculiar view to general evangelical tradition ; else why such re- 
peated references to the "Preparation" instead of saying "Passover day" at 
once ? An analogous feeling, a polemical purpose opposed to the Quartodeciman 
interpretation of the words of Matthew, pervades the Apollinarian fragments. 
There is a similar difficulty in regard to the first day of unleavened bread, 
which in Apollinaris is the 15th, in Matthew the 14th or Thursday. Generally, 
the irpwrrj a(vfjiwi> was supposed to begin on the evening of the 14th, and thus 
there would seem to be eight days of unleavened bread (see Hilgenfeld, Pascha- 
streit, pp. 128, 136, 137, 146. Gesenius Heb. Lexicon, p. 822, by Robinson). 



THE PASSOVER CONTROVERSY. 



267 



all doubt as to his meaning, the evangelist emphatically 
applies to the lifeless body of the Redeemer the legal and 
prophetic words peculiarly belonging to the paschal lamb ;* 
the juxtaposition of the two objects which at first meant 
only a typical comparison, 2 resulting in the absorption of 
one by the other. It now seems strange that Victor should 
have thought proper to excommunicate the churches of Asia 
Minor on grounds apparently trivial ; but important interests 
were at stake ; the special controversy was but part or token 
of a more general question, namely, the general relation of 
the New to the Old Testament ceconomy ; the fourth evan- 
gelist particularly indicating the abrogation of the latter 
by its fulfilment," 3 and alluding to Jewish observances as 
quite unconnected with Christian interests. 4 Christ having 
fulfilled the law by dying on the fourteenth, dissevered the 
new religion from the old ; under this conviction it could 
no longer be necessary or proper to observe the fourteenth 
day at all, 5 since Quartodecimanism was not unreason- 

1 Ch. xix. 36. In this most commentators agree : De "Wette, Olshausen, etc., 
as well as Baur. The object of the evangelist is to prove from the testimony 
of the apostle whom he claims to represent (see Eev. L 7) Christ's identity 
with the Passover, and also that his humanity, proved by the issuing blood 
(comp. 1 John v. 6), was not "docetic" or apparent, but real; the immediate 
source of the streams of water or spiritual fullness accompanying the issue of 
blood (comp. John iii. 5 ; vii. 38, 39). Hence the necessity of the lance-thrust 
so emphatically attested. Some (see Weiss, Johann. Lehrbegriff, p. 114, and 
National Review for July, 1857, p. 115) try to evade the allusion to Exod. 
xii. 46, and Numb, ix. 12, by insisting on Psalm xxxiv. 20, a reference selected 
from the marginal notes to John xix. 36, as the passage exclusively intended 
by the evangelist and more nearly corresponding with his language. In reality, 
however, the correspondence here is less exact ; and the aim of the evangelist 
to prove the substitution of the lance-thrust for tbe breaking of the bones, is a 
matter quite foreign to the purport of the Psalm, 

2 Revelations i. 5 ; v. 6. 

3 This is the meaning of " TeTeAeo-Tcu," xix. 30 ; and of the emphatic words 
in v. 35. 

4 Hence the often recurring formulae, "a feast of the Jews," "the Jews' 
preparation day," the " Jewish" law. Comp. i. 17, viii. 5, xv. 25, xix. 7. 

5 The variance, however, continued in certain churches down to tbe Council 
of Nice, which finally abrogated Quartodecimanism, declaring it to be " im- 
proper to have anything in common with the parricides who slew our Lord" 
(see Socrates, H. E., ch. ix.) ; and so far was the feeling of estrangement 
carried, that whenever the full moon fell on the Sunday, Easter was post- 
poned to the Sunday following. 



268 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

ably considered as a perpetuation or covert revival of 
Judaism. 1 Under these circumstances it would of course 
seem desirable to have apostolic authority to quote. All 
might still be made to depend on a point of Scripture exe- 
gesis : was the last supper the Passover or not ? did Christ 
realty eat the Passover before his death, or did he, as 
asserted by the advocates of a broader Christianity, oblite- 
rate the ulterior significancy of the Jewish rite by perform- 
ing it in his own person ? Now it is very remarkable that 
throughout the controversy no distinct reference is made 
to the fourth gospel, neither by the Asiatics as creating an 
obstacle to their views, nor by the Roman party as afford- 
ing evidence in their favour. Polycrates appeals simply 
and generally to "the gospel' ' in corroboration of his 
argument ; seemingly in complete unconsciousness of the 
existence of any other contradictory gospel. And an 
important fragment 2 of Apollinaris, Bishop of Hierapolis, 
seems to be equally silent, although as a strenuous opponent 
of the Eastern observance he had every motive to cite it. 
He says, in allusion to the mistake which he supposes the 
Asiatics to have made in the matter, that while quoting 
the authority of Matthew, they were in reality at issue 
with the law, 3 and by their interpretation set gospel and 
law at variance. 4 But there is no explicit appeal to the 

1 See Tertull. de Prsescrip. 53 ; Ignatius Phil., chap. xiv. 

2 In the Paschal Chronicle. 

3 See Schwegler's remarks, Mont., p. 194 ; and Hilgenfeld, Paschastreit, 
257, note. 

4 Or it may he — "set the gospels at -variance;" although this scarcely agrees 
with the exclusive reference of the Quartodecimans to Matthew. The reproach 
is hased on the assumption of Apollinaris that Christ was the true Passover 
— " to a\r)6ivov rov kvpiov Uaax a " — stated in the second fragment. Even 
if Baur be mistaken in regard to the meaning of the expression " o-raaia^eiv rot. 
evayye\ia," occurring in the first fragment, leaving us to suppose that Apol- 
linaris really does here advert to the fourth gospel, the result will be much the 
same in regard to its relative age. There is an evident feeling in Apollinaris 
that the Quartodeciman construction of Matthew was wrong ; there is an evi- 
dent effort in the fourth gospel to make its own construction of the day seem 
to agree with Matthew through its theory as to the Preparation. This 
favours the supposed connection of the origin of the fourth gospel with the 
Apollinarian party. 



THE PASSOVER CONTROVERSY. 269 

fourth gospel ; although to have cited John's direct autho- 
rity in his own words had undoubtedly been the simplest 
way of conclusively settling the question. It therefore seems 
clear, that the apostle John, to whom Polycarp and Poly- 
crates refer, cannot have been the author of a gospel sys- 
tematically opposed to everything savouring of Jewish 
narrowness, and so directly contradicting their way of 
thinking ; and, moreover, that since neither party distinctly 
appeal to such a gospel, the probability is that even if 
then existing, it was not generally acknowledged, and 
perhaps partly owed its existence to the very differences 
under consideration. 

The subject is curious, deserving attention alike in its 
modern treatment as in its ancient history. The latter 
exemplifies the victory of Christianity over Judaism; the 
former that of exact criticism over a misleading preposses- 
sion. The matter was first mooted at the beginning of the 
last century in reference to the calendar, but without sus- 
picion of its bearing on the gospel. A certain Jesuit then 
called attention to the difference between the Western festi- 
val of Easter and the Quartodeciman Passover, with which 
it had been improperly confounded. 1 He assumed the Asiatic 
observance to have included a commemoration of the cruci- 
fixion with that of the last supper ; his object was merely to 
distinguish this " iraa^a GTavpwdiybOv^ from the Western 
"7rao-%a avacTacriiLov" — the whole difference being treated 
either as a matter of mere convenience and form, or, as soon 
afterwards suggested by a Protestant writer, 2 as resulting 
from the arbitrary presumption of that " embryo Anti- 
christ," the Poman bishop. Mosheim, still conjoining the 
commemoration of the death with the paschal supper, took 
a similar view of the matter as intrinsically trivial ; as a 

1 "Whence the usual name for Easter in several languages, Paques, Pascua, 
Pasqua. 

2 C. A. Heumann, Consideratio priscse contentionis inter Romam et Asiam 
de vero Paschate. Gott. 1745. 



270 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

mere variance of days, and reckoning. Afterwards, how- 
ever, it began to be seen that, according to Jewish arrange- 
ments/ the Passover supper on the 14th could not have 
coincided with the day of the crucifixion, and that there 
is an essential discrepancy in this respect between the 
synoptics and the fourth gospel ; that if Jesus, as stated in 
the former, eat the passover at the appointed time he conld 
not, as intimated in the fourth gospel, have suffered on the 
14th. It thus appeared that Quartodecimanism agreed 
with the synoptics and contradicted John's Gospel ; but 
then it seemed very remarkable that it was particularly to 
the authority of John that the Quartodecimans appealed in 
their justification. Bretschneider shrank from the appre- 
hended consequences of the discovery ; but the importance 
of the subject was increasingly felt ; and Neander, in 1823, 
placed it in a clearer light by referring the difference 
between the customs to the general difference between Jew 
and Gentile Christianity, though still without suspecting 
the deep interests involved or the bearing of the contro- 
versy on the gospel. The Jewish Christians, he said, 
observing the usual Jewish festival on the 14th, translated 
it into the cotemporaneous Christian celebration of the last 
supper, commemorating the death by fasting on the day 
following (i.e. the 15th), the resurrection on the 17th ; 
whereas Gentile usage had no original connection at all 
with the Passover, it was simply a special anniversary 
celebration of what was usually celebrated weekly, namely 
the passion on Fridays and the resurrection on Sundays. 
This came into conflict with the Asiatic custom not merely 
on account of the implied Judaism of the latter, but 
because of the difference of days, and particularly because 
the Passover supper inappropriately interfered with a 
week of consecutive fasting. The Easterns contended that 

1 The Passover being really eaten not at the commencement, but on the 
evening of the 14th, so that Jesus could not have eaten the Passover, and also 
been crucified on that day. 



THE PASSOVER CONTROVERSY. 271 

Jesus eat the Passover on the appointed day, appealing to 
Matthew's Gospel and to general tradition ; the West, said 
Neander, appealed to the fourth gospel to shew that the 
supper occurred on the 13th — before the Passover. 

Neander did not substantiate his view or for the time 
pursue the subject farther; but Kettberg, in 1832, went 
on to argue that the Western church never held a passover 
supper, and that the Eastern did not, as supposed by 
Mosheim and Neander, return to fasting after feasting ; so 
that the rupture was not owing to this incongruity, but 
only to the difference of days occasioned by the Western 
change of a weekly into an annual festival. The only 
influence exerted over the West by the Passover was the 
placing Easter Sunday somewhere about the same time, 
and the general application of the word " Pascha" to this 
cotemporaneous commemoration of Christ as Paschal lamb. 
Even thus the difference seemed only external and unim- 
portant ; it was a mere difference of practice, and all that 
could be urged was an interference with ecclesiastical 
uniformity, and the incongruity of a partially Jewish rite 
with a purely Christian one. The relation to the gospel 
was unperceived ; for what mattered it that John acquiesced 
in a rite not strictly in agreement with historical fact ? and 
so Liicke, in the third edition of his commentary, declared 
that John might well be aware of the inaccuracy, although 
allowing and even sanctioning the ordinary practice. Still 
it would appear odd that the apostle should have practi- 
cally admitted a custom which his gospel supplied the best 
grounds for refuting ; and a presentiment of impending 
difficulty now led Neander to withdraw his previous theory 
as to the Asiatic Passover, and to suggest, with express 
reference to the fourth gospel, that its intent was not the 
supper but the crucifixion. 1 So that whereas it had been 
first conjectured that the supper forming the chief import 
of the Quartodeciman observance was a figurative anticipa- 

1 Life of Jesus, sec. 265, p. 425, Bonn's edition. 



272 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

tion of the crucifixion, Neander now claimed for the 
Passover the primary significance of the crucifixion, and 
placed the supper before both. 

At this point the Tubingen writers entered the arena; 
insisting that the difference was not formal merely, but 
fundamental, arising from absolute contrariety of prin- 
ciples ; so that if John, as traditionally asserted, authorised 
or acquiesced in Quartodecimanism, he could not have 
been author of the gospel condemning and controverting it. 
John, argued Schwegler, could not have " accommodated" 
himself to Asiatic usage while holding in reality with 
Western, because the two usages implied the whole differ- 
ence between a continuing Judaism and a new religion ; 
the question at issue was the relation of the new to the old 
ceconomy ; and the gospel bearing the apostle's name sup- 
poses an entirely different view from that implied by his 
acts. And it was especially noticed what anxiety is 
shewn by the gospel writer to exclude the very inference 
which John is said to have sanctioned ; l preferring to sup- 
press altogether any direct mention of the Lord's Supper 
than allow any obscurity to rest on the import attached by 
St. Paul to the crucifixion. 2 Baur, in his memorable paper 
in the Jahrbiicher for 1844, pursued Schwegler's argument, 
insisting that the difference was not one of mere ritual, but 
one of faith and doctrine, in fact the very principle asserted 
in the passage in Corinthians above referred to ; that the 
Western Church looked not to what Christ did, but to 
what he suffered ; and treating the Passover as fulfilled 
and ended by his suffering, dropped the day of the old 
observance, and so passed from the Judaism of the 
" TTjpovvres" to the Christian independence of the " fir/ 
rrjpovvres" The feeling was that which we have already 
encountered in the Pauline Epistles, namely, that the type 
ceases by fulfilment, the substance rendering the shadow 

1 See ch. xiii. 29; xviii. 28 ; xix. 14, 31. 

2 Comp. 1 Cor. v. 7, with John xix. 36. 



THE PASSOVER CONTROVERSY. 273 

unnecessary ; x and since after discontinuing the Passover 
there remained no regulating* chronological limit but the 
usual Sunday festival of the resurrection, the crucifixion 
became fixed in the new system as an hebdomadal ob- 
servance on the previous Friday. The more the matter 
was dwelt on, the more impossible it seemed, consider- 
ing the extreme importance attached to it at the time, 
to treat it as a mere trivial difference, or to claim the 
authority of John for both the parties historically proved 
to have stood diametrically opposed to each other ; and it 
was in vain that Wieseler exerted his ingenuity in attempt- 
ing to reinstate the long-abandoned harmony of the gospel 
accounts, 2 or that Neander, in the 2nd edition of his 
" History of Christianity," embarked in the equally 
hopeless enterprise of proving, in contradiction to his 
former argument in 1823, an agreement between the fourth 
gospel and the Asiatic observance, by denying the latter 
to have meant the Passover ; 3 proceeding to resolve the 
dispute, whose dogmatical importance had been admitted 
by himself, into a mere matter of days and dates. Nor 
was Bleek more fortunate in reviving Liicke's view that 
John might well have sanctioned or shared a merely Jewish 
rite, although himself well knowing that Christ as the true 
Passover, died on the Passover day ; for Baur 4 retorted 
that the Qnartodeciman rite was not merely Jewish, but 
also Christian, as incorporating the last supper ; so that 
John must have acted inconsistently ; nay, he was incon- 
sistent even as observing a merely Jewish rite if he wrote 
a gospel in order to express an idea whose essence was the 
abrogation of that rite. The battle has, of course, been 
contested with a pertinacity proportioned to the value of 

1 Coloss. ii. 17 ; iii. 10, 11. , Heb. viii. 13. 

2 Chronologische Synopse, 1843, p. 368, sq. 

3 To do this it was necessary for Neander to deny the authenticity of the 
fragments of Apollinaris, which, when unconscious of their hearing on the 
gospel, he had declared to be unimpeachable. 

4 Jahrbucher for 1847. 

18 



274 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

the interests involved ; and it is well known how problems 
clear in themselves are made hopelessly obscure by sophis- 
tical advocacy; but the substance of the argument is as 
above stated : those requiring further information may 
consult the works referred to. 1 



Inconsistency of the Fourth with the other Gospels. 

Looking- from external to internal phenomena, we find 
geographical and other inaccuracies which no native of 
Palestine, especially one intimately acquainted with the 
High Priest (ch. xviii. 15), would have been likely to 
commit; 2 on the other hand, inconsistencies amounting 
to contradiction to the synoptical gospels, making it im- 
possible to take both as historical. The discrepancy, for 
instance, as to the scene of the public ministry defies 
attempts at reconcilement ; the three gospels making 
Galilee the usual residence ; the fourth assuming that, 
but for exceptional and prudential reasons, Jesus would 
have resided exclusively in Judaea and Jerusalem. And 
the difference is the more striking because the Evangelist 
deliberately emphasises it by applying the identical words 
about "a prophet having no honour in his own country," 
in a sense contradicting their original meaning, as if 

1 Baur, " Die Evangelien," 334, 353, 375. Bemerkungen zur Johanneischen 
Frage, Tubingen Jahrbucher, vi. p. 89. Christenthum u. Kirche, p. 138, 141, 
147. Entgegnung gegen Hrn. Dr. G. E. Steitz. in the Zeitschrift fur Wissen- 
schaftliche Theologie, 1 p. 292. Gieseler, Lehrbuch der Kircbengescbte, 4th ed. 
vol. i. Bleek, Beitrage zur Evangelienkritik p. 107-155. Weitzel, Die Christ- 
liche Passahfeier. Hilgenfeld, der Paschastreit, Theol. Jahrbucher, 1849, 
p. 209, 281, and " Der Paschastreit der alten Kirche," Halle, 1860. Das neueste 
Steizianum liber den Paschastreit, Zeitschrift f. Wiss. Theol. 4, p, 106, etc, 
1861. Der Quarto decimanismus Kleinasiens, ibid., p. 285. 

2 The Bethany beyond Jordan (commuted in our Testament into Betha- 
bara), mentioned ch. i. 21, in all probability had no existence. The extraor- 
dinary circumstances of the pool of Bethesda are unknown to Josephus, and 
are evidently fabulous ; the distance between Cana and Capernaum does not 
account for passing a night on the road (ch. iv. 52), especially in the case of a 
father anxious for his dying son. The allusion to Caiaphas, as " high priest 
for that year " (xi. 51, xviii. 13) is historically unaccountable. 



INCONSISTENCIES OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 275 

the "country" intended were not Galilee but Judaea. 1 
Strauss here, as elsewhere, leaves the choice between 
the two accounts undecided ; but rather inclines to the 
synoptical, except in respect of the apparent difficulty of 
explaining, on that hypothesis, the sudden and extreme 
exasperation of the Jewish rulers, and the seeming admis- 
sion of an earlier Judsean residence in the expression — 
" How often would I have gathered thy children together, 
and ye would not!" It was urged 2 that the same cause 
which determines the difference in the general contents of 
the fourth gospel and those of the synoptics may also 
account for their divergence as to the scene of the 
ministry ; and in this view it was suggested that the 
discourses recorded by John as delivered in Jerusalem, 
requiring for their comprehension a more mature de- 
velopment of Christianity than that attained during the 
first apostolic period, were omitted in the primitive tra- 
dition recorded by the synoptics, and were first restored 
to their proper place in the narrative by John, who wrote 
when Christianity was more advanced. But then it 
occurred to ask on what grounds, either of special aptitude 
in the inhabitants of the respective places or otherwise, 
can we assume the popular and the esoteric to have been 
in real fact so nicely apportioned to Galilee and Jerusalem? 
Who misunderstood Jesus more lamentably than did the 
"Jews" of the fourth gospel, and how can we suppose the 
synoptical writers, who record so much of the final resi- 
dence of Jesus in Jerusalem, to have been ignorant of 
earlier visits, or, knowing, to have so entirely suppressed 
them ? The terms of the lamentation over Jerusalem, 



1 See John iv. 43, 44 compared with Mattli. xiii. 54 ; Mark vi. 1, 4 ; Luke 
iv. 23, 24 ; and especially the emphatic words, " e8e|ai/To clvtov 6i TaAfAa/oi," 
which Liicke undertakes to expound as follows:— They received him indeed, 
but not in the right spirit ; so that properly speaking they did not receive him; 
and so the words as to the "native country" refer to Galilee after all! Yv'as 
Jesus then, it may be asked, better received in Judeea ? 

2 Strauss, "Life of Jesus," vol. i., p. 400, Translation. 



276 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

as given in Luke and Matthew, were indeed accounted for 
by assuming the earlier journeys of the fourth gospel ; 
yet it could hardly be considered as affording satisfactory 
evidence of a conscious suppression of fact in the narra- 
tives in which they occur ; especially when it was re- 
membered that all Jews might fairly be called "children" 
of the metropolitan city, and that the whole course of 
the previous labours of Jesus in Galilee or elsewhere 
might be consistently viewed as intended for their con- 
version. 1 So that we seem in this case to be driven to 
the alternative that either the synoptical writers knew 
nothing of an essential portion of the ministry of Jesus, 
or else that the author of the fourth gospel deliberately 
invented a large portion of what he relates, and was in- 
fluenced by considerations differing from those of the 
mere historian. Again, the description of the character 
of Christ in the synoptics is not only different but incom- 
patible with that in the fourth gospel. The Messianic status 
is variously described in the synoptics as sonship by genera- 
tion, titular or official sonship, sonship by moral conformity 
of will, etc. ; 2 in the fourth gospel alone it takes the special 
and peculiar form of absolute divinity, of the pre-existent 
" Logos" of Alexandrian theosophic speculation; a notion 
so ill according with the human character of Jesus, that it 
is extremely difficult to imagine how a familiar friend and 
disciple could ever have entertained it. Indeed Dr. Karl 
Hase, a zealous defender of the authenticity of the gospel, 

1 This seeming variance has, however, been confidently relied on by those 
insisting that the fourth gospel really agrees with the others, as being intended 
to supply their historical omissions. It is urged that an exclamation, which, 
looking to the synoptical accounts alone, seems entirely destitute of meaning, 
and to be explained only by the circumstances related in the fourth gospel, 
vouches for the veracity and accuracy of that gospel. But is the exclamation 
really destitute of meaning in the synoptical accounts ? Strauss has recently 
shewn convincingly that it has even in these accounts a very sufficient meaning 
(see Zeitschrift fur wiss. Theologie, 6th year, p. 84) ; the "iroo-aKis" being 
explained by the character in which Jesus speaks. Comp. with Matthew 
xxiii. 37 the passage immediately preceding. 

3 Matt. v. 45. - » 



INCONSISTENCIES OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 277 

goes so far as to say that no one out of Bedlam could have 
imagined the master on whose breast he leaned at supper, 
to be the Creator and Lord of the world ; although at the 
end of life, in anticipation of the final victory of Chris- 
tianity, the apostle may have seen things in another light, 
etc., etc. But the theory of the fourth gospel implies not 
merely modification, but reversal of the disciple's human 
recollections ; a complete subordination of the actual to 
the ideal ; in the " Logos" we have not a human being 
exalted, but a Divine being if not actually lowered, at least 
temporarily condescending from his real altitude, 1 and 
assuming the form of man only for the transient purpose 
of his overt manifestation. 2 There is an entire absence of 
analogy between the lowly moral teacher of the synoptics 
and the visionary Christ of the fourth gospel ; and unsup- 
ported by independent testimony, we can never feel sure 
that the particulars related of such a being, his high 
wrought metaphysical discourses, etc., were suggested by 
personal recollection rather than by a priori postulates and 
conceptional necessities of theory. Moreover, in regard to 
general Christian theory, and the specific relation of the 
" new wine" of the fourth gospel to the continuing Judaism 
generally contemplated in the synoptics, there are many 
contrarieties to which it might be useful to refer, were there 
not inconsistencies of a similar kind within the compass of 
the synoptical gospels themselves ; and these cannot be 
fully understood until after attaining that wider view which 
is at present the object of endeavour. In a number of minor 
particulars too the fourth gospel is strikingly at issue with 
the others. Here, for instance, the incarnation changes its 
character ; from an absolutely essential, it becomes only a 
relatively necessary circumstance, little more, in fact, than 

1 Comp. John iii. 13, 31, with Phil. ii. 7. 

2 " Had he not come in the flesh," says the Epistle of Barnahas, ch. v. "how 
could men have been able to look on him that they might be saved ?" Comp. 
1 Tim. iii. 16. Epistle to Diognetus, ch. viii. (where for iroirj<rai read iJojAa- 
4>7}<rat). Also Irenaeus Hser. v. 1, 1. 



278 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

a scenic incidental accompaniment. The baptism and 
temptation, as recorded elsewhere, jar with the circum- 
stances here stated ; l and Harmonists vainly puzzle them- 
selves in attempting to reconcile the original recognition 
of Jesus by John in the synoptics 2 with the distinct dis- 
claimer of any such prior knowledge 3 in the fourth gospel. 
And, while the synoptics distinctly assert the public mi- 
nistry to have begun only after John had been cast into 
prison, 4 the fourth gospel emphatically places the signal 
demonstration at Cana before that event. The behaviour 
of the Samaritans in the 4th chapter of John belies the in- 
hospitable disposition attributed to them in Luke (ix. 52), 
to say nothing of the prejudiced antipathy on the Christian 
side, apparently authorised in Matthew (x. 5) ; and if 
Nicodemus was a real person, associated with Joseph of 
Arimathea in the burial of Jesus, how is it that the 
synoptics make no mention of him? It is still more 
significant that in the fourth gospel no mention occurs of 
the transfiguration, the agony in the garden, or the institu- 
tion of the sacraments ? Above all, why should an event 
of such infinite importance, both in itself and its immediate 
connection wdth the catastrophe, as the raising of Lazarus, 
have been altogether omitted by the synoptics ? 5 Then there 
are many circumstances and utterances in the fourth gospel 
without apparent object, whose incongruity or irrelevancy 
calls aloud for explanation. Why, for instance, should 
the Saviour, whose religion is love, speak so harshly to 
his mother ? 6 Whence the mysterious speech to the 
bridegroom at Cana 7 and the allusions to the "second 
day" and "third day" in the opening chapters? Why is 

1 See Baur, " Evangelien," pp. 105, 106. 2 Matt. iii. 14. 

3 " I knew him not" are the words here used (i. 31). 

* Matt. iv. 12; Mark i. 14. 

6 The incompatihility of the respective gospels as to the day of the last 
supper and the crucifixion is shewn in detail by Strauss, part iii., ch. 2, § 121. 
In the translation, vol. iii., pp. 139, 276. It should be generally recollected 
that the critical analysis of Strauss is the basis of that of Baur. 

6 Ch. ii.4. 7 Ch. ii. 10. 



PLAN OR THEORY OF THE GOSPEL. 279 

the cleansing of the temple antedated? Why should the 
Evangelist, after telling* us that Christ baptised, correct 
himself afterwards by saying 1 that his baptism was only 
vicarious 1 Have the seemingly desultory remarks of 
Jesus from the fifth to the end of the tenth chapter any 
link of intelligible connection 1 Why should the writer 
take so much pains to shew that the events elsewhere 
stated to have accompanied the Passover really happened 
before the Passover ; 2 and why in ch. xix. 35, the anxious 
and emphatic attestation to circumstances apparently 
trivial or accidental ? These and other similar questions 
must be answered in a way tallying with the general 
character of the gospel, and including all seeming anoma- 
lies ; otherwise we cannot be sure of having passed beyond 
the sphere of conjecture, or of having penetrated the real 
intent of the w T riter. 

The Plan or Theory of the Gospel. 

These questions could only be answered through a care- 
ful study of the gospel itself; keeping in view the very 
obvious consideration that if of two conflicting accounts 
one appears to be under the control of a leading purpose, 
while the other betrays either no such bias, or only a 
smaller amount of it, the latter will have the higher 
claim to credit as a history. The problem was solved 
by F. C. Baur, who in a minute analysis 3 shewed how 
a consistent plan pervades the composition ; how by dis- 
missing altogether the fancied history of facts, we reach 
at last the true history of ideas, As the garb of flesh 
which the gospel describes as in itself profitless (vi. 63), 
though serving as a visible form or frame-w^ork for the 

1 Ch. iii. 22. Comp. iv. 2. 

2 See John xiii. 1-29; xviii. 28; xix. 14, 81, 42. 

3 Essay on the Character and Composition of the Fourth Gospel, Tubingen 
Theol. Jahrbucher, vol. iii. — since incorporated with his work on the Gospels. 



280 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

emanated God, so here the ostensibly historical narrative 
is but the transparent incarnation of a dominant theory. 
Not that it should be called " a treatise of Alexan- 
drian philosophy/' or that with a recent Bampton lec- 
turer 1 we are to take this imperfect view as that of 
the Tubingen School. The gospel is rather the cul- 
minating expression of speculative Christian theology ; 
a definitive repudiation of Judaism in favour of the new 
religion of "grace and truth" (ch. i. 17), a concentra- 
tion of all the scattered rays of spiritual life, — of the doc- 
trines of faith and works, — of all that was really available 
and valuable in the inventory of Montanist or Grnostic, in 
the view of promoting the grand object of Catholic union ; 2 
the purified quintessence of current theories in the form of 
a moral drama, backed by the authoritative name of the 
head of Asiatic Christendom. 

It commences in a manner intimating clearly enough 
that its object is not simply historical. When, instead of 
entering at once on the circumstances of the life of Jesus, 
it begins with a speculative account of the nature of the 
Logos, it already indicates the ideal point of view from 
which it should be considered. Several significant passages 
of a general nature point to an ulterior purpose ; and the 
whole will be found to be very artificially constructed with 
a view to bring out the immediately proposed moral, — 
namely, the conflict of two contrasted principles, of the 
world's true light in collision with spiritual darkness, and at 
the very moment of seeming extinction becoming a salutary 
beacon (xii. 20, 23, 32), signalizing a glorious victory in the 
establishment of a new religion. The speculative character 
of the gospel had been often noticed, as by Eichhorn, Lucke, 

1 Mr. A. S. Farrer.— Bampton Lectures for 1862, p. 392. 

2 Among the many passages advocating union (as ch. x. 16, xvii. 11, 20, 
12, 23), that about the scattered children of God awaiting reunion (ch. xi. 52) 
is one of the most striking. For a brief summary of the gnostic ingredients 
of the gospel, see a paper by Hilgenfeld in the present number of the Zeits- 
chrift fur Wiss. Theologie, Halle, 1863, p. 101 sq. 



PLAN OR THEORY OF THE GOSPEL. 281 

and De Wette ; but it was admitted grudgingly and hesi- 
tatingly ; it still remained a question how far the idea 
controlled the history or was subordinate to it ; whether 
the narrative was a real basis of fact with a superadded 
moral, or only a secondary vehicle for the expression of an 
idea. And there are many who still hesitate between a 
truth they cannot gainsay and interests they are loth to 
renounce ; who admit the ideal purpose, and yet contend 
that the apostle's authentic reminiscences stood apart and 
were entirely unaifected by it. 1 But Baur may be said to 
have effectually proved that the gospel becomes intelligible 
only when the notion of history is wholly discarded ; when 
the purpose is recognised as arbitrarily marshalling and 
modifying the recorded events. 

The antagonism of the two principles, one divine, the 
other proceeding from the " prince of this world" or the 
Devil, is carried out on the theatre of humanity (i. 4) ; and 
the effect of their interaction is described as a self-executed 
"judgment," — not a judgment in the ordinary sense as 
determined from without, but effectuated inwardly by the 
self-executed separation of heterogeneous elements, 2 — the 
natural result of attraction and repulsion on the mere 
exhibition of divine light before differently constituted 
minds. The presence of light serves to bring out an 
already existing contrast, to make darkness more emphati- 
cally dark, so that in consequence men fall conspicuously 
asunder into the two classes of which they really consist, 
— namely, the children of Gfod and the children of the 
Devil. 3 Dr. Hilgenfeld here recognises an essentially 
gnostic element; 4 a metaphysical dualism underlying all 

1 See Johanneische Lehrbegriff, by Dr. Bernhard Weiss, already known for 
an ineffectual attempt to maintain the apostolic age of the first Petrine Epistle 
noticed in the 1.5th vol. of the Tubingen "Jahrbiicher ; also an article in the 
National Review for July, 1857. 

2 Expressed by the Greek word u Kpi<ris." 

3 Compare i. 13 ; viii. 23, 44, 47 ; x. 14, 26 ; xi. 52 ; xii. 39 ; xvii. 2 ; 
xviii. 37. 

* Das Urchristenthum, pp. 121, 122. He remarks that in John i. 12, 13, 



282 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

ulterior development ; the diversity of conditions is original 
(iii. 6 ; vi. 70) ; the blindness of some inevitable (xii. 39, 40) ; 
unbelief is not so much a result of will as of natural de- 
pravity; the "judgment" is the light of truth revealing 
the latent bias of human hearts ; so that moral action and 
responsibility, though not excluded, appear incongruously, 
and the general ceconomy contemplated seems to be one of 
fatalism. Nevertheless the chasm between the two prin- 
ciples is not absolute ; however marvellously and incom- 
prehensibly brought about, 1 men may pass from one to the 
other (x. 24) ; they may be "born again," 2 and the means of 
effecting this transformation or regeneration is Faith. But 
Faith is attained only through adequate means ; oppor- 
tunities of recognising its divine object must be afforded, 
and there must be an aptitude or suitable disposition in the 
subject. The subject must be inwardly disposed or "drawn" 
to receive light in order to reach eventually the intimate 
union of divine "sonship" (i. 12) ; on the other hand the ob- 
ject must be "lifted up," i.e. clearly and visibly manifested 
so as to become accessible to human belief. Faith depends 
on knowledge ; knowledge on the evidences of our own 
senses and reason, or on the testimony of others. The 
modes of divine manifestation are thus of two kinds : First, 
the personal appearance of the glory of the " Word " by 
means of his incarnation (i. 14), his "signs" and "works," 3 

two kinds of divine affiliation are expressed ; one a capacity progressively- 
realised, the other an antecedent metaphysical status preceding and con- 
ditioning acceptance of the word (viii. 47 ; x. 26; xviii. 37). To the original 
"children of God" are opposed the "children of the devil" (viii. 23, 41, 44, 
47; x. 26 ; xii. 39). In the words arbitrarily modified from Isaiah vi. 9 — in 
the latter passage — it may he asked who is meant by "he" contrasted with 
the "I" signifying the saving and healing Deity ? The groundwork, however, 
of the theory may be recognised in the other gospels, as where Matthew 
(xiii. 11, 12) speaks of parabolic language as a test of the spiritual competency 
of "those who have." 

1 Ch. iii. 8 — vi. 44. Compare Luke xviii. 27. 

2 It seems from iii. 8, 15 ; v. 24 ; and xii. 32, that all men, according to 
what St. Paul says in Romans xi. 26, and elsewhere, may, on certain condi- 
tions, become regenerate and saved. 

s See ch. v. 36 ; x. 25 ; xiv. 10, 11. 



PLAN OR THEORY OF THE GOSPEL. 283 

his words, and especially his " lifting up" or crucifixion 
(iii. 4). Secondly, the testimonies of others, — for instance, 
that of God himself, or the witness of competent men, 
especially that of the Baptist. The Son witnesses of the 
Father (i. 18), the Baptist of the Son. The testimony of 
the Baptist is delivered in three successive acts and three 
successive days or periods of time. 1 In the first of these 
periods we have a mere abstract consciousness of the 
presence of the yet unrecognised Messiah by the attesting 
organ ("A voice crying in the wilderness," etc.); in the 
second period or day, a concrete perception of the indi- 
vidual Jesus who, as "Lamb of God, takes away the sins 
of the world," fulfilling the office of Messiah through 
suffering and death ; in the third, the first realised effects 
of the testimony transmitted to the world in the "abiding" 2 
faith of the two first apostles who followed Jesus. 

The testimony proceeding originally from God having 
thus reached the first authorised agents for its dissemina- 
tion, there begins a new triad of acts and days 3 introducing 
the divine agent himself with several preliminary mani- 
festations of his glory ; first the miraculous recognition of 
Simon Peter ; then that of Nathaniel ; thirdly, the still 
more remarkable demonstration to the eye (the proper 
meaning of the term " a7]/neiov, ,} and therefore the " be- 
ginning of miracles") in the change of water into wine at 
Cana. Here, according to the significant hint contained 
in the abrupt answer of Jesus to his mother, repudiating 
as it were by this inuendo all material associations and 
earthly affinities, the wine is a symbol of what is elsewhere 
termed the "blood of the new testament," contrasted with 
the "purifying" baptismal water of the old or Jewish 
system; 4 and the general meaning of the effected trans- 

1 Probably suggested by Luke xiii. 32, 33. See also Matthew xxvi. 61. 

2 As to the word "abode" in ver. 39, compare infr. ch. xiv. 3 ; and xvii. 24; 
xy. 3, 7 ; viii. 31. 

3 Indicated by the expressions at i. 44, and ii. 1. 

4 Ch. ii. 6 ; iii. 25, 26. 



284 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

formation is suggested to be the substitution of the 
spiritual system of the gospel for the old oeconomy, of 
regeneration for mere external belief, of the heavenly 
bridegroom himself for the " friend" or precursor who 
temporarily occupied his place. 1 

The next incident refers to the scene where the chief 
manifestations were to be made. They were made for the 
purpose of converting and convincing unbelief; and the 
metropolis of unbelief was Jerusalem. The gospel was 
to be first offered to the Jews (iv. 22) ; Judaea was the 
proper " country" of the prophet (iv. 44), the proper 
theatre of his agency. Jesus therefore appears from the 
first at Jerusalem, and it results from this difference of 
place that he exercises at once at the very outset of his 
career that absolute authority as " Logos," which elsewhere 
he assumes only at its close ; 2 being in the temple, he must 
needs exercise his right to purify his Father's house, and 
could not have interfered afterwards, as recorded in the 
other gospels, had he before silently acquiesced in its 
abuses. The warrant assigned for exercising this act of 
authority is a reference to his crucifixion and resurrection ; 
and the allusion being expressly stated to be figurative 
(ii. 21), it may be allowed to extend the figurative signi- 
ficance from the resurrection itself to its ulterior import in 
the establishment of a new religion, and to suppose Jesus 
to have virtually said : " My authority to reform the old 
religion is proved by arguing from the greater to the less ; 
for hereafter I will do more than I have now done ; after 



1 Dr. Trench and others, following Augustin, explain the miracle of Cana 
by the so-called " natural acceleration process ;" Strauss remarks on the other 
hand that there is no hint whatever of natural means, and that it is far better 
to let the " natural process " alone, and acquiesce in the miracle pure and 
simple. The commentators have been staggered by the expression " well 
drunk," and by the immense quantity of wine said to have been produced on 
the occasion. Dr. Trench tries to reassure us by the consideration that we 
may be quite confident the Lord would not have sanctioned inebriety in his 
own presence. 

2 See ch. ii. 14. 



PLAN OR THEORY OF THE GOSPEL. 285 

the old religion shall have been destroyed I undertake to 
replace it with, a new one." 1 

Next come a series of dramatic illustrations of the feeling 
which the manifestation of the Son of God was calculated 
to evoke among different classes of men — in other words, 
of the nature of faith (the great subject of the gospel 
drama) in its various capacities and degrees. Nicodemus, 
the Samaritan woman, and the nobleman of Capernaum, 
indicate three different kinds or classes of believers. The 
first class, represented (iii. 2) by the benighted Nicodemus, 
are those mentioned at the end of the previous chapter, and 
who frequently reappear afterwards among " the Jews," 
who believed because they "saw the miracles," but whom 
Jesus could not trust (ii. 24). No one, says Nicodemus, could 
do these miracles if God were not with him. But this kind 
of belief is of a merely speculative and very imperfect kind, 2 
implying no real progress in spiritual life ; and doubtless, 
in the infallible " crisis" or judgment of divine light men- 
tioned directly afterwards, would be found still darkling 
in the obscurity of spiritual eclipse. It may be compared 
to the seedlings of the " way side" and " stony places," 
elsewhere mentioned as having no root ; 3 it is superficial, 
unproductive, and unreal. " Signs and wonders" are in 
reality only an external means for awakening attention, 
and giving a first impulse to a higher spiritual state ; the 
real transition, the inward regeneration, is still wanting ; 
and the subsequent address of Jesus shews how much more 
Nicodemus, as representing this class of half believers (iii. 2), 
required in order to become a real member of the kingdom 
of God. And here it is not irrelevant to remark that Mr. 
Mansel, in his recent argument on miracles, 4 unwittingly 
instances this very case of Nicodemus as an example of true 
faith, whereas, in the meaning of the evangelist, it is only a 
very precarious and imperfect one ; and it is in reference 

1 Comp. Mark xiv. 58. 2 See iv. 48. 

3 Matt. xiii. * Aids to Faith, p. 39. 



286 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

to these uncertain, untrustworthy followers, who believed 
only because they " saw the miracles," that Jesus lays so 
much stress upon "continuance." 1 Indeed it is particu- 
larly significant that this occasion is selected to call our 
special attention to the great " crisis" or severance of classes 
(iii. 18), and that the Baptist now solemnly inaugurates the 
commencement of the new dispensation (iii. 29) ; all concurs 
in this disposition of the narrative to impress upon us that 
mere external belief in signs still remains on the unrege- 
nerate or dark side of the picture — that the true spiritual 
life has yet to commence. 

We next proceed to illustrations of this transition, 
gathered in the symbolical journey of Jesus through 
Samaria — the first scene, according to the tradition re- 
corded in Acts viii. 6, of the successful preaching of the 
gospel. The half-heathen Samaritaness represents its first 
stage. Her belief is indeed at first occasioned by a " sign" 
or manifestation of supernatural insight ; but eventually 
the Samaritans pass on to the higher stage of belief in 
Jesus " for his word," so as to acknowledge his true cha- 
racter ; and finally a still higher spiritual state is exhibited 
in the Galilaean nobleman, who believed without the inter- 
vention of a sign ; his faith anticipating the miracle, and 
being generated independently. The perfection of mental 
aptitude is belief without sights or " signs ;" and since, 
once effected, it carries with it conviction of heavenly as 
well as earthly things (iii. 12, vi. 69), it would seem that 
to the spiritually-minded miracle is wholly superfluous : 
this indeed is the last inference of the evangelist (xx. 29).. 

Dialectical Encounter with " the Jeics." 

The fifth chapter introduces a scenic encounter with the 
principle of unbelief represented by " the Jews," partly 
carried on by way of argument, partly in signs or ex- 

1 Cb. viii. 30 ; comp. ii. 23. 



PLAN OR THEORY OF THE GOSPEL. 287 

amples. Darkness has its signs and manifestations as well 
as light, meeting the clear evidences of the latter with its 
own specious arguments and cavilling objections ; but these 
eventually serve only to shew its vanity and inconsequence. 
The drama is arranged under specific heads or types, the 
display being in each instance followed by an explanatory 
discourse, pointing out in the general spirit of the gospel its 
moral bearing. First, a remarkable work of healing, cha- 
racteristic of the "Word" as source of life (i. 4), is performed 
on the Sabbath. It contains intrinsic evidence of divinity, 
not only as a miracle or " sign," but as a " work," evincing 
the beneficent power of healing and quickening which 
proceeds from God only. Confronted with this test, un- 
belief goes beyond the neutrality of Mcodemus, and a$ 
once reveals itself in its true character by disclaiming the 
divine work for the paltry reason that it was done on the 
Sabbath, and already shews its natural tendency to destroy 
him whose power is exerted only to heal and save. Jesus 
takes the opportunity to shew that God's agency is subject 
to no Sabbath restrictions or interruptions ; moreover, that 
the Son's action is indissolubly bound up with that of the 
Father, who as absolute principle of life communicates to 
the Son the same healing and life-giving power, hereafter 
to be more conspicuously exhibited on the grand scale of 
the resurrection. He goes on to argue that this divine 
character, though disputed by the Jews, was sufficiently 
proved according to the strictest rules of forensic evidence ; 
not only by John's testimony, but by the intrinsic moral 
evidence of the works, and also by the testimony of God 
himself in that very Scripture on which the Jews relied, 
and from which they derived their technical objection as 
to the Sabbath. 

Again, in the sixth chapter, the "Word" is shewn to be 
the great supporter and nourisher, as well as source, of 
physical and spiritual life — the giver of meat " enduring 
to the everlasting life," eventually to be realised at the 



288 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

last day. The nature of faith, or the subjective appro- 
priation of the divine object, is here discussed ; and the 
idea of the heavenly manna, or divine principle as bread, 
serves to illustrate its spiritual operation as assimilating 
and incorporating congenial nourishment in a way ana- 
logous to the alimentary processes of the body — becoming 
in fact one with the object of belief. This idea of course 
appears as foolishness to the sensuous unbeliever ; it is " a 
hard saying ;" by materialists food can only be understood 
materially ; the unspiritual insist on the literal meaning 
of allegory, and speculative ends in practical unbelief, 
if not open hostility. The unsteady, untrue disciples are 
self- convicted by withdrawing ; and Judas, who remains, 
only shews how long the real unbelief characterising the 
Satanic class may counterfeit the semblance of its opposite. 
Jesus thus standing almost isolated in the midst of an 
unbelieving world, proceeds with that public display of 
light before the blind eyes of darkness to which he is chal- 
lenged by his unbelieving brethren. Jewish darkness 
exerts every effort of ingenious quibbling to maintain its 
plausibility ; but is at last ignominiously driven from all 
the illusory pretences of " Scripture," " affinity to Abra- 
ham," etc., on which its obstinacy is based. Its self- 
refutation is contained in three successive acts or scenes, 
the whole forming a continuous satirical burlesque on the 
empty loquacity of Rabbinical argumentation. Jesus first 
comes forward under the incognito 1 which according to 
vii. 27 was characteristic of the Messiah ; yet they refuse 
to recognise him as such because he does not appear under 
an entirely contradictory aspect, as the known pupil of a 
recognised teacher (ver. 15), although really he was taught 
by the greatest of all teachers, God. Then again he 
appears in the opposite character as "known" (" irapprjcna 
XaXet"), reminding the Jews of his previous encounter 
with them on the occasion of healing the lame man, when 

1 u ws eu KpvTTTC})" (vii. 10). 



PLAN OR THEORY OF THE GOSPEL. 289 

they so inconsistently appealed to Mosaic law. Hereupon 
the Jews perversely adopt a ground of denial directly 
refuting their former argument ; they now say, " this 
man cannot be the Messiah because we know whence he 
is ;" yet after all they are proved not to know whence he 
is, for they knew not Grod who sent him, etc. 1 Their Rab- 
binical pedantries are the self-deluding sophistry peculiarly 
characteristic of unbelief ; and thus the expedients resorted 
to in self- vindication prove to be self-destructive, forming a 
net in which it becomes inextricably entangled and self- 
refuted. And when, on the last great day of the Feast of 
Tabernacles, 2 Christ announces himself in all the unveiled 
dignity of his personal presence, as the fountain of living 
waters, so that unprejudiced spectators are forced to con- 
fess that " never man spake like this man" (vii. 40, 46), 
unbelief still ventures to come forward with the sorry pre- 
tence that Christ must come not from Galilee but Bethle- 
hem, David's well known place of residence, overlooking 
its former argument at ver. 27, and again contradicting 

1 Here again Dr. Hilgenfeld recognises dualistic gnosticism in the fact so 
repeatedly insisted on (ch. vii. 28 ; viii. 19, 54, 55 ; xv. 21 ; xvi. 3 ; xvii. 25), 
that the Jews had not known the true God; that with the exception of a few 
prophetic glimpses (v. 46; viii. 56; xii. 41), the Supreme Deity with eternal 
life was first revealed by Christianity (i. 17; xvii. 3). For Christ says, not 
that the Jews failed to recognise th,e messenger of a known God, hut that they 
knew neither God nor his messenger, and that to say his Father was their 
God was a delusion (viii. 54). Hence Christ is the true door; and all who 
came before him were thieves and robbers (x. 8). A difficulty occurs in ch. 
iv. 22, where it would seem as if the Jews were contrasted with the Sama- 
ritans in regard to this very matter of knowing God (See Baur's " Christen- 
thum," p. 133) ; really, however, both Jerusalem and Gerizim stand on the 
same footing of a transient, because an undiscerning and unspiritual, worship. 
Jesus certainly does not mean to contradict his general antithetic position to 
Judaism ; on the contrary, while admitting the external antecedency of Jewish 
rights, he places Judaism, whether in its orthodox or heretical (Samaritan) 
forms,— altogether below and apart from the true spiritual worship. Compare 
with the above ch. v. 37, 3S, 39 ; vi. 46 ; viii. 15, 54 ; ix. 41 ; and see Hilgen- 
feld in the Zeitschrift f. Wiss. Theol. vol. vi. p. 103. 

2 The acts recorded as occurring at the several feasts have evidently a sym- 
bolical propriety; thus, at the Passover (vi. 2), Christ announces himself as 
the heavenly bread ; at the Feast of Tabernacles (vii. 2), he appears as the 
living water ( vii. 37 ; comp. 1 Sam. vii. 6 ; and the libations customary at 
this feast in Winer, B. R. V, "Laubhiittenfest"). 

19 



290 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

itself by resorting to Scripture for a reason when at the 
same moment transgressing Scripture by condemning a 
man unheard ! 1 The last and real argument or ground- 
work of unbelief is mere irrational obstinacy, a dogmatical 
refusal to believe, as expressed in the stupid interrogatory 
by no means obsolete in our own day, " have any of the 
rulers believed on him?" — a refusal arising less from 
defect of understanding than from one of will ; and the 
only reason why the last crisis urged on by malevolence 
and perversity is yet postponed arises from the transcen- 
dental necessity, " his hour had not yet come." 

Other illustrations follow, partly argumentative, partly 
symbolical, of the same general subject. The pregnant 
instance of the silent judgment exercised by the " light of 
the world" in the case of the woman taken in adultery 
affords at the same time an opportunity of exemplifying 
the contrasted spirit of law and gospel ; and the subse- 
quent conviction of the Jews as " children of the devil" 
shews how unbelief when masking under religious pre- 
tences is in reality most irreligious. The agency of the 
same principle in giving light and sight on the Sabbath 
to the man born blind answers to the previous similar gift 
of life and health to the impotent man ; unbelief availing 
itself of the same technical plea of " the Sabbath " in order 
to shew that the work was sinful, and consequently not 
really and truly miraculous. But facts are stubborn 
things ; and the true inference is the reverse of that 
intended by the Jews, namely, that since opening blind 
eyes contradicts all ordinary experience (ix. 32), he 
who did it must be from God. But the blindness is here 
a figurative blindness, and the sight supernaturally given 
passes through several moral gradations and varieties until 
it emerges into the full light of belief. First, there is 
the external apprehension of the mere sign, conveying no 
immediate insight as to the person of Jesus ; but this 
1 Comp. ver. 42, 49 with 51. 



PLAN OR THEORY OF THE GOSPEL. 291 

apprehension passes on to the apprehension of the work as 
a work of God (ix. 31), and thence to the full appreciation 
of the person of Jesus as the Messiah (ver. 38). The 
antithesis to this advance from blindness to insight are the 
"Pharisees," those blind leaders who, however ocularly 
familiar with work and worker, see neither in their true 
character. Unbelief is self-condemned, as the deliberately 
adopted blindness of men with their eyes open. Again, in 
contrast to the hireling Pharisees of the ninth chapter, we 
have the true Shepherd of the tenth, who knows his sheep 
and is known of them. 



The Raising of Lazarus and Last Series of Discourses. 

From the end of the tenth chapter, where the discussion 
with unbelief ceases, and where Jesus, having completed 
the series of his preliminary manifestations, is brought 
back, as if for the purpose of indicating the close of this 
portion of the narrative, to the locality where his ministry 
commenced, we approach the final issue in which the Jews 
openly shew themselves no longer in mere disposition and 
intention, but in actual deed — as children of the father of 
lies and murders. The hour is announced as " come/' and 
the body of Jesus is embalmed as for his burial (xii. 7). 
The frequent anticipations of the closing scene occurring 
through the narrative are part of the far-reaching syn- 
thetical character of the gospel, which overlooking space 
and time, 1 and actualising the future and distant, makes 
the whole career of Jesus the inevitable evolution of a pre- 
determined plan. A presentiment of the catastrophe 
pervades the whole. The first display of " glory" at Cana 
distinctly alludes to the impending hour of mingled defeat 
and victory, where the water of the Old Testament was to 
be exchanged for the symbolical wine of the new ; the 

1 See i. 18 ; iii. 13, 



292 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

enemies of Jesus at once entertain a murderous purpose, of 
which they are half unconscious ; 1 and from the first he is 
pointed out as the expiatory "lamb," whose " lifting up" 
was to ruin the cause of darkness by drawing all men to 
the light. Hitherto the divine manifestations, though not 
wholly ineffectual, 2 had been ill- received ; darkness could 
not comprehend the light (i. 5 ; vi. 52, etc.) ; wickedness 
would not (iii. 19) ; and hence the literal fulfilment of 
prophecy (xii. 37) emphatically recorded as the pre- 
ordained issue of unbelief. But the time had arrived for 
the Son's definitive glorification, when the principle of 
life was to be assured in the midst of death (xii. 24). The 
last scene is immediately preceded by a significant and 
hitherto unprecedented display of power, very necessary in 
the general construction of the gospel, but to which, as an 
actual event, no allusion occurs in the others. The miracle 
of the raising of Lazarus stands apart from the rest of the 
" crrjfieia" (x. 38, 41) ; it does not, like the others, form 
the subject of after discussion, but is all important in the 
sequence of the narrative, as constituting the immediate 
cause of the final catastrophe, and typically heralding the 
resurrection of the Prince of life himself. The circum- 
stances, taken as a mere history, are altogether anomalous 
and paradoxical. A man sickens and dies, yet his sickness 
is " not unto death," but for the glory of Grod (xi. 4). He 
is beloved by Jesus, yet Jesus, after hearing of his illness, 
purposely remains two days longer in the place where he 
then was, leaving his beloved friend to die unaided ! Then, 
after having been thus deliberately neglectful, he groans 
and weeps over the dead, although conscious of possessing 
the power which he immediately exercises of resuscitating 
him ; and finally pronounces a solemn prayer, in which he 
informs the Deity that although fully aware of the useless- 
ness of praying on his own account, he nevertheless thinks it 

1 Comp. ch. v. 16 with vii. 20. 

2 See ii. 23 ; vii. 12, 31, 40, 41 ; viii. 30 ; x. 42. 



PLAN OR THEORY OF THE GOSPEL. 293 

right to pray in order to make an impression on the minds 
of the bystanders ! (ver. 41, etc.) This is not the lan- 
guage of true history or genuine feeling ; but in a narra- 
tive contrived for a purpose, the very improbabilities of 
the story serve to direct us more certainly to the intended 
meaning. Indeed we are expressly told that the circum- 
stances are calculated to promote the great object of the 
drama, 1 and are consequently entitled to infer that the 
pathos is only to be taken as the pathos of romance. But 
the romance takes its form from the general structure of the 
gospel. The peculiarities of scene and circumstance at the 
commencement lead inevitably to peculiar modifications at 
the close. Jesus having been throughout exposed to peril 
from the machinations of enemies at Jerusalem, and having 
hitherto escaped with impunity, it was necessary to assign 
some special circumstance or provocation in order to bring 
the long protracted issue to a crisis ; in short, to exhibit both 
the glory of Jesus and the corresponding envy and incre- 
dulity of the Jews in their most intense and decisive forms. 
The synoptical miracles which the evangelist had before 
him are consequently arranged in a certain order of gra- 
dation, which here attains its climax. Already the Lord 
of life and light had characteristically manifested himself 
by giving health to the maimed and sight to the blind ; 
the resuscitation of the dead was the only remaining way 
in which he could surpass himself, and it was also the 
surest means of exasperating his enemies to the utmost. 
The real aim is indicated in the recorded effect, i.e., a new 
"judgment'' or crisis among the witnesses (xi. 45, 46), 
and in the altered conduct of the Pharisees, who are now 
unavoidably compelled to resort to more active measures 
(vers. 47, 48) ; and yet unbelief, in the midst of its medi- 
tated triumph, pronounces its own doom of disappointment 
in the prophetic anticipation, that the realization of Jewish 
hate would have the very opposite of the intended effect, 
1 See vers. 4 and 15. 



294 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

namely, the salvation of the nation and the world generally 
(ver. 49, etc.), i.e. the glorious result of the crucifixion. 
For Christ appears throughout not so much as the sacrifi- 
cial lamb, as the head of a spiritual family (x. 26 ; xviii. 
37), the source of spiritual nutriment, the true Shepherd 
of the soul ; and the atoning sacrifice of his death is chiefly 
dwelt on in its triumphant consequences as an act of glori- 
fication and unification, as the discomfiture of the " prince 
of this world," as a decay prolific of fruitfulness (xv. 8), as 
the great means of " gathering together into one " the scat- 
tered children of God. 1 In this gospel, the true moment 
of the transfiguration is the crucifixion ; and the agony 
felt at its approach is here limited to a mere transient 
exclamation, a passing shadow lost in the splendour of the 
coming glory (xii. 27). And this " glory" is no mere 
outward display, no mere restoration of the celestial condi- 
tion of the Logos (for this had been already seen in all 
its plenitude on earth), 2 but the inward effectuation of 
his earthly work (xvii. 2, 4, 5), the abundant fructification 
of the heavenly vine (xv. 8) by the realization of "life 
and light" in humanity. The Son glorifies the Father by 
giving eternal life to man (xvii. 2); and this life consists, 
we are told, in true religion; in the true knowledge of 
God and of Christ (xvii. 3), established in a living organ- 
ization of the associated faithful (xv. 4-6). During the 
interval immediately preceding his execution, Jesus ad- 
dresses a distinct series of discourses to his disciples who 
remained the sole available means for reclaiming an un- 
believing world (xvii. 11).- Even among them some cor- 
rupt elements still lingered ; the false follower, the " son 
of perdition," was yet unseparated from the true; the 
feeling of impending desertion had to be met by the pro- 
mise of the " Comforter ; " various mistakes and misappre- 
hensions were to be removed ere the disciples could be 

1 Ch. xi. 52 ; xii. 19, 20, 32. Comp. i. 12. 

2 See ch. i. 14. 



PLAN OR THEORY OF THE GOSPEL. 295 

considered as definitively perfect, as placed on the same 
relative footing to Jesus as that in which Jesus stood to his 
Father, i.e., of intimate union as "sons of Grod" (i. 12). 
This is the important object of the concluding addresses ; 
in the final prayer of hierarchical consecration, the whole 
work is supposed to be virtually finished, and Jesus looks 
beyond his immediate disciples to the whole body of future 
believers, constituting the Christian church of after times 
as theoretically conceived (xvii. 20, 21), to whom, by anti- 
cipation, he has already communicated the " glory " or 
saving power received from his Father. 1 

Circumstances and Import of the Crucifixion. 

After the series of discourses detailing the theory of 
glorification — such as the resurrection and return to the 
Father, the giving of the Spirit, and the initiation of a 
new spiritual life or religion, the last events required for 
its external realisation are briefly recorded. Here, although 
the accounts agree more closely than elsewhere, there are 
several variances connected with the peculiar theory of the 
gospel. It is clear from the synoptics that Pilate thought 
Jesus innocent, and wished to have released him ; in the 
fourth gospel this feeling is expressed more decidedly ; 
Pilate's expostulation is more earnest ; 2 and when it 
proves unavailing, he is more obviously made to appear a 
passive instrument in the hands of Jewish hate, so as to 
cast the whole odium of the crucifixion upon the Jews. 
The counter question of Jesus to Pilate's interrogatory, 
and Pilate's hasty interjection " What is truth ?" have the 
same probable object. The object is expressed in the re- 

1 Ch. xvii. 22, the glory I " have given," i.e. " the power over all flesh," 
namely, that of giving eternal life to the elect (ver. 2), faith having its final 
and full accomplishment in the annihilation of the opposition between light 
and darkness, and the perfect union of subject and object. 

2 From comparing xviii. 20 with xix. 14 it appears that Pilate strove 
against the Jews for six hours. 



£96 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

spective answers, "The chief priests of thine own nation 
have delivered thee to me ; " and the question about truth 
implies neither curiosity nor sarcasm, but only the ir- 
relevancy of a speculative discussion about the nature of 
truth in a criminal accusation, and as it were Pilate's 
mental ejaculation, " How ridiculous to bring here a mere 
philosophical enthusiast on a capital charge ! " followed by 
the inference spoken aloud, " I find no fault in him." Yet 
all this, — including the difference as to the scourging, — 
making the alternative scourging proposed in Luke into a 
fact, although after all not allowed to be a substitute, might 
possibly be accounted for on the common hypothesis of a 
fuller recapitulation of details ; but there are other circum- 
stances which cannot be so explained ; for instance, the 
extreme importance attached to the flow of blood and 
water, and the difference as to the day of the execution. 
Both of these circumstances are very strongly insisted on. 
Nowhere are the attestations more earnest and emphatic 
than in regard to the lance-thrust and consequent issue of 
blood and water, which seems as if intended to be the cli- 
max of the whole narrative (xix. 35) ; and in regard to the 
day of execution the Evangelist incessantly warns us 1 to 
reserve our thoughts of the Passover for the ultimate catas- 
trophe by mentioning various circumstances as occurring 
"before" that event ; by expressly distinguishing from 
the Passover the last supper in xiii. 2 ; and by the gra- 
tuitous information that Judas, when he rose from table to 
fulfil his treason, was supposed by those remaining to have 
gone to buy something "for the Passover" (xiii. 29). It 
is very remarkable that the Evangelist should be nowhere 
more emphatic than when contradicting the other gospels ; 2 
and this circumstance strongly impels us to look carefully 
for his motive. The issue of blood and water in distinguish- 
able streams from a corpse is perhaps physically impossible; 

1 See xi. 55; xii. 1 ; xiii. 1 ; xviii. 28; xix. 14, 31. 

2 See Baur, Evangelien, p. 215. 



PIAN OR THEORY OF THE GOSPEL. 297 

as to its being mentioned as proof of death, this had been 
already assumed as a fact (xix. 30, 33), and needed no 
additional confirmation. That the synoptical account as to 
the day of execution is contradicted by the fourth evan- 
gelist has been admitted almost universally ; l and attempts 
have been vainly made to substantiate the accuracy of 
the latter at the expense of the others. 2 And even sup- 
posing the account in the fourth gospel to be the true one, 
there still remains the contradiction between its reputed 
authorship and the general Asiatic tradition embodied in 
the solemn declaration of Polycrates, assuming John to 
have been the great champion of the oriental Passover 
observance on the 14th distinct from the commemoration 
of Christ's death ; whereas the gospel distinctly makes 
Christ the Passover, and treats the last supper as an ordi- 
nary repast 3 independent of the Passover. It appears 
that a large party existed in the second century both in 
the East and West, who building on the words of St. Paul 
(1 Cor. v. 7) " to Trao-ya rj/xcov virep rj/icov €tv6t], Xptso?" 
made Christ the true Passover, and treated as renegades 
and deicides all who were of a different way of thinking. 4 
Clemens of Alexandria, Apollinaris, and Hippolytus were 
of the number ; they considered the Passover as a type 
which had been fulfilled by Jesus in his own person, 
and consequently abolished. 5 The difference was most 
important ; it implied the end of the old ceconomy, and 

1 Except, it seems, by Wieseler, whose manoeuvres to bring about agree- 
ment are described as pitiable. 

J On the gratuitous hypothesis that the synoptical account is at variance 
with Jewish customs. Were Jewish customs then so soon forgotten, especially 
by writers like Matthew who seem, on the contrary, to be particularly well 
acquainted with them? Comp. Dr. Jost's Geschichte des Judenthums, 1st 
Part, p. 278. 

3 Aenrvov yipo/j.evov, not "rov Seinvov" but simply "denrvov." 

4 Thus Ignatius to the Philippians, ch. xiv. " If any one observes the 
Passover with the Jews he is an accomplice of those who killed the Lord and 
his apostles." Canon. Apos. 5, •' If any bishop observes the day of the 
Passover of the Jews, let him be dismissed," etc. See Schwegler, Mont. p. 197. 

5 " To a\T)8ivov tov Kvpiov iravxa 6 avri rov ajxvov 8e0ejs," 2nd Fragment 
of Apollinaris. See Schwegler ib. p. 198. Eilgenfeld, Paschastreit, p. 258. 



298 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

its replacement by a new one ; and it was of the utmost 
consequence to shew historically that Christ did not eat 
the Passover before his death, but, in accordance with the 
idea of the absoluteness of Christianity, transferred, by 
dying on the Passover day, the significancy of the Jewish 
rite to his own person. The latter was the view of the 
party alluded to, 1 and that espoused by the author of the 
gospel. In all probability the words of the Baptist at the 
commencement about the "Lamb of God," convey this 
meaning ; and unquestionably the two incidents mentioned 
ch. xix. 33, 34, as special fulfilments of Scripture, can have 
no other. 2 The opponents of the Asiatic observance held 
that the latter had lost its import by fulfilment ; the type 
had become a reality, and no longer had a substantive 
meaning. Judaism ceased to be, and Christianity, as the 
absolute and perfect religion, took its place. It is this 
great change, with all its implied advantages of union with 
Grod through the diffusion of the Spirit, 3 to which the 
emphatic words of the evangelist apply ; namely, the cri- 
tical moment of transition between two religious dispensa- 
tions — the final word of Jesus, " TerekecrTcu," implying that 
the whole of prophecy was fulfilled, and the destiny of 
Judaism accomplished. It is not so much the death which 
he is anxious to attest, as the momentous import of the 
death, already prefigured as the outpouring of living water 
in the discourse at the feast of tabernacles. Here we 
have the actualisation of what was there supposed ; and as 
each believer is there described as a body overflowing with 
living water, so here the evangelist sees in the inanimate 
body on the cross the fountain of the spiritual stream, 

1 In the Paschal Chronicle, xii. 16 — " Tlepas air€i\7)(pe to tvttikov Tra<rx a > 
tov a\T]divov Trao~x<>t- irapayevoixtvov." 

2 See above, p. 267. 

3 The water may signify the Spirit ; see iii. 5. But the Spirit could not be 
given before the death (vii. 39) ; hence the blood, the symbol of death, pre- 
cedes the mention of the water, though both issue forth "forthwith," or 
instantaneously. 



PLAN OR THEORY OF THE GOSPEL. 299 

which, disappointing the malevolent intent of the Jews, 
suddenly issues forth to replenish and revivify the world. 
To actualize the idea it was only wanting that the body 
should be pierced ; the Roman " crucifragium," which had 
been inconsistent with the contemplated typology, was 
therefore replaced by a lance-thrust, and the assumed fact 
was thus made to appear as a Scripture fulfilment. 1 

Explanation of the Inconsistencies, etc. 

The impression of an all-absorbing purpose which re- 
sults from the above analysis, is obviously unfavourable to 
the credit of the narrative considered as a history ; and 
that not only on the general ground that strong partiality 
and bias must always more or less influence descriptions of 
fact, but because it is especially in deliberate modifications 
of the facts reported in the other gospels that the writer's 
design is here manifested. And when taking the book in 
this sense we treat it as a grand theological drama freely 
composed by some unknown hand in the interests of an 
advanced theory of Christianity, how readily are the 
anomalies and discrepancies accounted for by that all 
mastering purpose in the writer which to himself seemed 
as a divine overruling necessity ! 2 Differences vanish 
when we change the point of view, and desist from vain 
attempts to unite what was never intended as identical. 
The striking difference as to locality in making Jerusalem, 
not Galilee, the native country of Jesus 3 and the chief 
scene of his labours, ceases to surprise when we reflect 
that Jerusalem was typically the native country of the 
prophet, the immemorial theatre of his sufferings ; 4 and 

1 See Exod. xii. 46 ; Numb. ix. 12; Zech. xii. 10. Rev. i. 7. 

2 Comp. ch. ii. 4 ; iii. 30 ; vii. 30 ; xii. 39 ; xiii. 1, 11 ; xvii. 1. 

3 John iv. 43, 44 ; Matt. xiii. 54. 

4 See John vii 52 ; Luke xiii. 33 ; and Origen (vol. xiii. p. 54) says : — 
" irarpis rcav irpo<f>r)Ta>j' ey rrj lovdaia riu, kcu cpavzpov €cm ti/j.tjv avrovs irapa 
lovSaiovs /ir) e<rx r ) lc * val -" Strauss, in an article before referred to in the 



300 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

that to carry out the object of the evangelist in convicting 
the Jews of obstinate and incurable unbelief (xii. 37) it 
was especially necessary that the mighty acts of Jesus 
should from the first be conspicuously exhibited in their 
presence. Hence at the outset witnesses are brought from 
Jerusalem to hear the testimony of the Baptist (i. 19) as 
well as to receive his final words as to the cessation of the 
old oeconomy (iii. 26) ; and it is not accidental that the 
sensual unapprehensive Galilasans receive the here oppro- 
brious name of " Jews" at the moment when lapsing into 
open unbelief (vi. 41, 52). And not only does the rectifi- 
cation of the point of view account for the seeming dis- 
crepancy in the records ; it enables us to see that we have 
before us no independent tradition, but only the synoptical 
tradition itself in a modified form. For if the labours of 
Jesus at Jerusalem really began so much earlier than 
commonly supposed, we might fairly anticipate a distinct 
series of important events as well as discourses known only 
from the fourth gospel ; whereas in fact very little addi- 
tional matter is here recorded except the speeches, and a 
few other things rendered historically suspicious by their 
obvious utility in promoting the peculiar objects of the 
gospel. 1 In the same feeling, and by way of contrast to 
Jewish perversity, the evangelist omits no opportunity of 
exemplifying the relative aptitude and spiritual superiority 
of the heathen ; whereas the blindness of the Jews is made 
to appear the more unpardonable from the arrogance of 
their pretensions (ix. 41). Hence he scruples not to con- 
tradict, or at least to vary and enlarge, the synoptical 

Zeitschrift fur wiss. Theologie, vol. vi. shews not only that the " iroaaxis" of 
the lamentation over Jerusalem by no means necessarily implies previous 
journeys, but that it is probably in part the basis of the idea of the previous 
journeys reported in the fourth gospel. 

1 For instance, in regard to the reiterated journeys of Jesus to Jerusalem 
on "account of the feasts" in a gospel so decidedly unfavourable to ceremonial 
observance, it may fairly be assumed that the assigned reason is taken from the 
synoptical accounts of Christ's going up to the last Passover, the occasion 
being repeated as well as the journey. 



EXPLANATION OF INCONSISTENCIES. 301 

tradition 1 in accordance with later eventualities ; in regard 
to the Samaritans, for instance, anticipating the rich 
harvest of the " fullness of the Gf entiles" which the 
apostles, who had not sown, were eventually to reap, 2 he 
enlarges on the "much fruit" to be brought forth by the 
dying seed (xii. 24c), and sees the first fruits of the dis- 
persed children of Grod already crowding to gaze on the 
glorious luminary 3 at the near approach of his "lifting 
up." The prophetic glance anticipating this enlarged 
sphere of religious efficacy overmasters present suffering, 
and the momentary pang of the traditional "agony" is 
forgotten in the surpassing glory of the future church 
(xii. 27, 32). In short the gospel is synthetical; the end 
is contemplated from the beginning, and the data are 
subjected to the modifying "necessity" preconceived in the 
writer's mind. The supposition of historical fidelity and 
of a distinct apostolical tradition, instead of forwarding 
Harmonistic views, really makes the fourth gospel a refu- 
tation of the others ; whereas the hypothesis of a free 
moulding of the same tradition by an idea explains the 
variations, omissions, etc., without doing any violence to 
the synoptics. For instance, the " <rap% eyevero" of the 
fourth gospel, (i. 14) rightly understood, implies no less 
than a contradiction of the synoptical incarnation ; but 
then this latter sort of incarnation was obviously inappli- 
cable to a Being already existing before the world, whose 
"flesh" was only the semi-transparent medium of his 
overt manifestation to human consciousness. 4 How could 
it have suited an ideal narrative of the Logos — in which 

1 Comp. Matt. x. 5, and Luke ix. 52 with. John iv. 39. But Luke here 
furnishes several data (as Luke x. 2, 30) to John. 

2 Ch. iv. 35. Comp. Acts viii. 
s Ch. xii. 20, 24 ; comp. xi. 52. 

4 Since here the subject is pre-existent, — independent of mortal birth — 
whereas in the other gospels the person commences at birth. See Baur, 
Evangelien, pp. 98, 99. The gospel takes a middle way between Ebionite 
and Docetist ; between an ordinary and a visionary body (comp. ch. xx. 19 
and 27) ; the appeal to miracle, or to the mystic spiritual consciousness 
(vi. 63), solving all seeming pragmatical difficulty. 



302 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

two brief words (i. 14) just serve to bridge over the con- 
ceptional interval between divine condescension and human 
frailty, to have conducted us through the ignoble circum- 
stances of the birth, the manger, and the swaddling clothes, 
with all that attention to low minute detail through which 
the Jesuit still delights to drag the sensuous imagination, 1 
— as if forsooth a fleshly nativity were wanted in order to 
make the commencement of a career already existing and 
in progress (" rjv ep^o/juevov") from eternity ? So in 
regard to the baptism, a close consideration of the passage 
(i. 32), will shew that the evangelist, though apparently 
following the synoptics, ingeniously avoids the act of bap- 
tism, and converts the synoptical dove into a sort of sym- 
bolical intimation to the Baptist's soul ; 2 the ceremony 
there constituting a necessary condition of Messianic con- 
secration 3 had been wholly out of place where the Messiah 
is already fully qualified and consecrated, and the only 
consideration is " the witness," i.e. the identification to the 
mind of the Baptist, and through him to the world, of the 
individual pre-appointed to the office. And it is curious 
to observe how in the midst of variances of statement the 
evangelist constantly seeks authority and support from the 
hints and even from the differences of the synoptical ac- 
counts, shewing how unnecessary it is to look beyond those 
accounts for the source whence he derived his materials ; 
and how in making these materials subservient to his ob- 
ject he is obliged to suppress, to transfer, sometimes to 
alter; so that the narrative is in part parallel, partly 
divergent or original ; but the originality has its source, 
not in a distinct tradition, but in the writer's mind. 

1 That is, in the spiritual exercises of Loyola ; the enervating dreaming of 
a modern " Retreat." 

2 This may have been suggested by the initial unwillingness to baptize 
mentioned in Matthew iii. 14, 15; and also by the expression " avewxQf]aav 
avrcc 6i ovpavoi." The reluctance arising from a feeling of impropriety men- 
tioned by Matthew is here taken as a conclusive reason for entirely suppressing 
the fact in view of the higher theory of the Logos. 

3 See Matthew iii. 15. 



EXPLANATION OF INCONSISTENCIES. 303 

Again, the details of the temptation had been altogether 
irrelevant here for the purpose of affording that prelimi- 
nary test of Messianic competency which they exhibit else- 
where ; such an interlude with Satan could have little 
conduced to the grand object of a spiritual manifestation 
to the human conscience ; for why anticipate in melo- 
dramatic by-play the real and more instructive controversy 
with the power of moral darkness which forms the subject 
throughout? And how superfluous here had been the 
insertion of an isolated instance of magical transforma- 
tion or " transfiguration " in the career of one whose whole 
life on earth was a continued display of the glory of the 
only begotten, eventually restored to its full effulgence at 
the very moment of seeming eclipse (xii. 23) ! The ap- 
parent anomalies in the miracle of Cana, incompatible as 
they are with the synoptical account, 1 become perfectly 
intelligible when we see its import, — namely the transforma- 
tion of Judaism into the wine or better spirit of the new 
dispensation ; water, as the element of Jewish "purifying" 
(iii. 25), betokening the system ending with the Baptist, 
who now, when the bridegroom himself is come, has only 
to rejoice and to retire (iii. 25, 29). Jesus, as divine 
mediator (i. 51), and as it were marrying earth to heaven, 
is himself the bridegroom ; 2 he comes forth from his father 
to woo and conciliate the world, reserving to the last the 
better wine of the gospel ; and although for a moment the 

1 According to the synoptics (Matt. iv. 12; Mark i. 14) Jesus returned to 
Galilee only after John's imprisonment ; here it is particularly said that he 
hegan his miraculous career hefore that period (iii. 23) ; so that in the 
synoptical accounts there is no room for the miracle of Cana, any more than 
for the haptism and temptation in the consecutive series of the six Johannean 
days. The harsh answer of Jesus to his mother is an insoluble puzzle to the 
commentators, because they insist on construing it pragmatically instead of 
figuratively. De Wette, after trying four different modes of explanation, 
gives up the matter as hopeless; — "Der Punkt bleibt dunkel !" Dr. Trench 
suggests that the harshness of the reply " may have been mitigated in the 
tone of speaking ; " but still he thinks a reproof may have been intended to 
Mary, who from her. exalted position as mother of her Lord and Master was 
possibly tempted to forget her relative position ! 

2 Comp. Matt. ix. 15 ; Luke v. 34. 



304 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

new and the old baptisms appear as parallel, and seemingly 
in rivalry (iii. 26), we are immediately afterwards informed 
how the earthly mission was to terminate, while the hea- 
venly was to increase. The allusions are sufficiently obvious, 
and any one with ordinary attention may see for him- 
self the conditioning circumstances. How apt, for instance 
by way of illustrating the victory of living " Reason " over 
Jewish sophistry, is the account in the ninth chapter of 
the man born blind, whose physical defect is so much more 
readily cured than the mental defect of the Jews ! So 
suitable appeared the illustration in regard to the all 
important object intended, that like John's baptism in 
a preceding passage (i. 23, 31), the man seemed to the 
writer's mind to be there for the mere purpose of manifest- 
ing the work of Grod ; and this he does in a way emphati- 
cally contrasting in its several stages of progressive insight 
with the arrogant blindness of Judaism. Again, how ap- 
propriate in a gospel systematically discountenancing every- 
thing carnal and external ("the flesh profiteth nothing," 
etc.), is the dramatic impersonation of the axiom as to the 
true kindred of the Saviour in Matthew (xii. 50) conveyed 
in the intimation from the cross, that the beloved disciple, 
— one thoroughly united in thought and feeling with Jesus, 
was thenceforth as his true brother to occupy a son's place 
in his mother's affection, while it is expressly noted that 
his brethren by affinity, including even the man 1 after- 
wards so exalted on account of this very relationship in 
the Christian community at Jerusalem, " refused to believe 
in him" (vii. 5). The story of the raising of Lazarus 
is in all probability a mere amplification and adaptation 
of Luke xvi. 31. Considered as history, it is not only 
paradoxical in its details, but irreconcileable with the other 
gospel accounts, which being natural and complete in 
themselves, allow, as shewn at length by Baur, no place 
or possibility for its occurrence. An event of such magni- 
1 James— see Gal. ii. 12. 



EXPLANATION OF INCONSISTENCIES. 305 

tude happening under the circumstances here related could 
not have been omitted by an historian. The miracle is 
here the immediate cause of that extreme popularity of 
Jesus which produced the intense hatred leading to his 
execution ; and this close connection with the catastrophe 
must, had it been real, have compelled the sjmoptists to 
mention it. The only conceivable reason for their omitting 
it must have been ignorance ; but how could they have 
been ignorant of an event so supremely important, and 
which we are expressly told was publicly notorious through- 
out Jerusalem (xi. 45, 47 ; xii. 9, 11, 17, 18, 19) ? The 
inference is inevitable ; the silence of those who must have 
known of an event if it happened, and who must have 
mentioned it if they knew it, sufficiently and conclusively 
proves that it did not happen. But the relative importance 
of the last journey to Jerusalem diminishes in proportion 
to the alleged frequency of previous journeys ; so that in 
the fourth gospel it became necessary to assign to the last 
journey a greater significance and prominency in some other 
way. Indeed the writer himself warns us not to take the 
statement as historical. As in other instances, such as those 
of the Baptist (i. 31), in the man born blind (ix. 3), where 
he indicates clearly enough that the events were designed 
for the purpose of the story, or to set forth and prove more 
distinctly its ideal object ; so here we are informed that the 
great end in view was " the glory of God" (xi. 4) : and 
hence the love of Jesus to Lazarus and his sisters is shewn 
in the strange way of purposely allowing him to die (xi. 
5, 6), in order to have an occasion of manifesting this glory 
and of confirming the belief of the disciples by raising him 
(xi. 15, 42). But the more impossible the occurrence as an 
actual event, the greater and more emphatic is its significance 
as the expression of an idea. It is repeatedly intimated in 
the gospel that what seems unprofitable and absurd when 
literally construed, as by the dull heart of Jewish unbelief, 1 

1 See, for instance, ch. iii. 4, 9, 12, 14 ; vi. 34, 36, 52, 56, 60 ; xii. 40. 

20 



306 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

becomes appropriate and important when spiritually un- 
derstood as a representative symbol. The external form 
is throughout of small importance, and we shall have 
little benefited by the instructions of the evangelist if we 
have not learned to "believe without seeing ;" to look on 
the fleshy garb or "sign" as a mere directive indication 
(perhaps altogether superfluous to the spiritually minded), 1 
leading on to the true object of belief, namely the "works," 
words, and above all the person of the Redeemer. More- 
over this resuscitation of the dead was not only essential to 
the structure of the story, but also to carry on the ex- 
emplification of the world's "judgment," as shewn in the 
varying behaviour of the beholders (xi. 45, 46), and also to 
illustrate fully and completely the inherent powers of the 
Lord of Life, 2 who throughout makes act the practical 
commentary on discourse, and appends dramatic pictures 
to abstract lessons. 

The omission of the institution of the Sacraments at those 
points of the narrative seeming naturally to require it, has 
often been remarked as extraordinary. Accidental it could 
hardly be ; and to say the evangelist omitted what he as- 
sumed to be already known proves too much and too little ; 
too much, because many things are in fact repeated from the 
synoptics ; too little, because the enthusiastic advocate of a 
new theory of Christianity would naturally blend with it so 
striking and peculiar an institution immediately emanating 
from its Founder. The evangelist evidently assumes the 
Baptismal and Eucharistic ritual as subsisting, when com- 
menting at length at an early stage of the narrative on its 
spiritual significance. The import of baptism is explained in 
the dialogue about regeneration with Mcodemus ; that of the 
Eucharist in the marriage feast of Cana, and the discourse 
occasioned by the miracle of the loaves as to the living 
bread from heaven. Why then, having so expatiated on the 
meaning, does he fail to record the institution ? Itis scarcely 
1 See ch. iv. 48 ; vi. 63 ; xx. 29. 2 g ee c h. v# 2 4 ; xi. 25. 



EXPLANATION OF INCONSISTENCIES. 307 

enough, to say that the general character of the gospel is 
opposed to ritualism, when approval of the rite is already ex- 
pressed by descanting on its mystic import. Doubtless the 
evangelist had a more special reason for silence. After trans- 
ferring the day of the crucifixion in accordance with his 
theory from the 15th to the 1 4th Nisan, 1 he of course could 
not admit the last supper commemorated on the preceding 
evening to have been the Passover. He might certainly 
have placed the Eucharistic institution in connection with 
the last supper on the 13th ; but then it happened that the 
Eucharist had been too closely and habitually associated 
with the Passover in cotemporary feeling to be readily 
severed; the former would have inevitably carried back 
with it its accredited significance ; the supper would have 
retained its Paschal associations, and would thus have in- 
terfered with the all-important idea of the true Passover. 
This consequence the evangelist was specially anxious to 
avoid ; hence he expressly distinguishes the supper from 
the Passover (xiii. 1), and as the only means of effectually 
preventing a collision between the Eucharist and the 
Passover omits it altogether. The omission is assuredly 
no result of accident or ignorance. Even if we had not 
the evident allusions of the gospel, we should have been 
sure that the particulars must have been well known to the 
evangelist from the other gospels, and from the still more 
authentic attestation of St. Paul. 2 But then what opinion 
are we to form as to the historical character of a writer 
who is thus proved to have deliberately suppressed an im- 
portant historical fact out of regard to a favourite theory ? 
The dominant motive is unquestionable ; the source of the 
differing accounts obvious; and it becomes impossible to 
escape /the inference that a narrative which in one remark- 
able instance so passes over a well-known fact, may not be 
more deserving of implicit confidence as a history in others. 
There is an obscurity in the accounts of the resurrec- 
1 See references above. 2 1 Cor. y. 8 ; xi. 23. 



308 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

tion ; in the various conduct of the apostles, the speeches 
to Mary and to Thomas, and the nature of the appearances 
of Jesus. The seemingly strange address of the risen Jesus 
to Mary Magdalene, " Touch me not, for I am not yet 
ascended to my Father," has caused perplexity, inducing 
some commentators to alter, and even invert the reading. 
Baur suggests that the evangelist may have had before 
him the passage in Matthew xxviii. 9, where the disciples, 
in their eagerness to adore the risen Jesus, come and " hold 
him by the feet." The interlude had been inappropriate 
here, where, just as the incarnation was parenthetically 
noticed (i. 14) amid successive manifestations of glory, the 
resurrection and ^ascension are treated as one spiritual act, 
a simultaneity expressed in the preceding discourse by 
their combination in the simple phrase "Going to the 
Father." As the gospel elsewhere transfers, abridges, 
and suppresses traditional data, such as the agony, the 
transfiguration, the sacraments, etc., to suit its peculiar 
purpose, so in the case of the ascension, which is here 
consistently represented as almost instantaneous. Even 
in the gospels mentioning it the ascension is recorded 
very briefly ; in " the Acts " alone receiving the scenic 
amplification of the cloud, and the forty days' postpone- 
ment. Here, where all must be considered in an ideal 
point of view, and where in idea the resurrection and 
ascension are intimately blended (xvi. 28), such an in- 
terval had been incongruous. It had been said that the 
sending of the " Comforter" or Holy Ghost depended on 
Christ's going to the Father (vii. 89 ; xvi. 7) ; and since 
all the anticipated benefits of the new spiritual life were 
inseparably consequent on the death, it was necessary to 
make the interval between these events as brief as possible. 
Jesus himself declared (xvi. 16) that it was to be only "a 
little while." Hence the rapidity of the transition, the 
present tense " avaftaivoa" (xx. 17), and the hurried 
speech to Mary, who alone catches a glimpse of the 



EXPLANATION OF INCONSISTENCIES. 309 

ascending Redeemer, and is seemingly about to stay, by 
an impatient gesture of reverential homage, the already 
commencing movement. In pursuance of his promise, 
indeed the very same day (xx. 19), he reappears among 
the disciples to bestow on them that spirit which he could 
not give until after the ascension had been completed 
(xvi. 7), thus commencing the anticipated beatific union 
(xvii. 21). 1 

Then what is the intended nature of the risen Christ ? 
The print of the nails, the wound in the side, suggest a 
material body ; but how could a natural body pass through 
closed doors and impart the Holy Ghost? Lucke, after 
the usual fashion of supernafcuralists, would reduce the 
miracle to moderate and manageable proportions, insisting 
that in the risen is to be understood the bodily Jesus ; an 
intermediate nature between the angelic and the material, 
he says, is "to me inconceivable." Yet why should the 
believable be conceivable ? Why should the supernatu- 
ralist be half rationalist ? Why swallow the camel of 
miracle, and strain at the gnat of logical inconsistency ? 
The real inconsistency is in those who, admitting a miracle, 
disavow its inexplicable and paradoxical concomitants. 
The risen body holds us to no such alternative of the 
visionary or corporeal as supposed by Lucke ; we know 
from St. Paul that it is both ; 2 sethereal and material 
simultaneously. Jesus reappears spiritually according to 
his promise to confer the Holy Ghost, although here, as 
elsewhere, in corporeal reality of form ; and the preceding 
discourse may be referred to as explaining as far as possible 
the subsequent event. In one passage (xvi. 7) he promises 
to send the " Comforter ;" in others he undertakes to come 
himself (xiv. 18, 28). Here is a repetition of the seeming 
dilemma, another inconsistency ; first, a promised return 

1 On the distinction between the Catholic idea of the Paraclete and the 
sporadic fantasies of the Montanist, see Baur's Christenthum u. Kirche, 
i. p. 272. 

2 1 Cor. xv. 44. 



310 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

of Jesus ; then another divine being sent instead of him 
(xiv. 16). He comes not then in his own proper person ; 
still the coming being is closely connected with him ; — is 
to come "in his name" (xiv. 26), to " testify of him" 
(xv. 26). In short the coming is miraculous, corporeal or 
spiritual, as circumstances require ; as the coming of the 
Father (xiv. 23), so that of the Son, both equally implying 
the accomplishment of the spiritual purpose before theo- 
retically announced in the discourses. 1 

With the giving of the Spirit the narrative properly 
terminates ; but an incident is added offering a final 
illustration of the nature of the great agent of religion in 
the heart, namely faith. 2 It is added, to refute the last 
illusion of incredulity, that seeing is essential to believing. 
Doubtless external " signs" are often needful in order to 
originate faith ; but they are needful only as means for 
producing something higher and better ; they are as the 
body of which faith is the soul ; and when the pure spirit 
has been disengaged remain but as the refuse of mortality 
or the cerements of the dead. The most blessed faith is 
that which believes without seeing ; the majority believe 
only after they have seen; others again, even although 
seeing, believe not, like the Jews and the half-darkling 
Mcodemus, who though alive to the inconsistencies of his 
fellow rulers, remains apparently unconscious to the last, 
appropriately sharing with Joseph of Arimathea the last 
duties to the corpse. The faith which depends on sight is 

1 Dr. Hilgenfeld supposes that the Spirit which at first descended upon 
Jesus according to the Baptist's intimation (i. 32. etc.), was itself the Logos ; 
that this Spirit became severed from him at his crucifixion, according to the 
gnostic theory of the impassive divinity, and was reunited at the ascension. 
(Die Evangelien, p. 238, and " Urchristenthum," p. 129.) But one of the 
most noticeable characteristics of the gospel is the tact with which it steers 
clear of gnosticism ; and perhaps the best illustration of the writer's meaning 
is the passage in the first Epistle — 1 John v. 6, — where Christ's humanity is 
emphatically asserted against the Docetists ; declaring — possibly not without 
an allusion to the baptismal water and the accompanying descent of the Spirit 
— that he " came not by water alone, but by water and blood." 

2 The first section of the gospel terminates at xii. 37, with a formal 
inference as to the same important subject. 



THE OTHEK GOSPELS. 311 

ever precarious, and apt to relapse into unbelief. 1 Such, 
we are told, 2 was once the condition of Peter ; and the 
evangelist seems to have in view this unsatisfactory state 
of mind when in a preceding paragraph, as well as in the 
appended twenty-first chapter (ver. 7) he contrasts the 
conduct of Peter with that of John (xx. 4, 8) . It will 
assist our comprehension of this passage to refer to that in 
Luke (xxiv. 12) mentioning the bewildered perplexity of 
Peter at the sight of the grave clothes, a passage which 
the fourth evangelist seems here to have had especially in 
view, 3 and which may have suggested the contrast between 
the disciple who could not understand what he saw, and 
the other who on seeing believed and understood at once. 
Peter saw only grave clothes ; John, indifferent at first to 
these externalities, saw a confirmation of his previous 
faith, founded on the divine necessities of Scripture. 



The other Gospels. 

The admission of the ideal character of the fourth gospel 
supplies a clue to follow the more complicated structure of 
the others. To suppose the fourth historical were not only 
to dismiss the entire phenomena of Christianity to the 
sphere of the miraculous, but to destroy, or at least in- 
definitely weaken, our reliance on accounts which are 
inconsistent with it. On the other hand, after allowing 
the conceptional character of the fourth, the question again 
opens as to the relative reliability of the others ; while at 
the same time the insight already gained as to the nature 
of the fourth forbids an incautious indiscriminate reliance 
on the pragmatical accuracy of all. It has been seen that 
most of the New Testament writings, like the genuine ones 

1 According to trie saying— Matt. xiii. 12, and Luke viii. 18— that he who 
hath not shall lose even what he seems to have. 

2 Luke xxii. 31. 

3 See Baur, " Evangelien," 323. 



312 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

of St. Paul, contain a special doctrinal character or view of 
Christianity, in other words a peculiar "gospel," 1 expressed 
with a particular anxiety to secure that harmony and unity 
among believers which were still desiderata in the second 
centurjr, and which since the Antioch dispute were as- 
suredly non-existent in the first. Controversial or con- 
ciliatory efforts of this kind were expressed partly in 
didactic, partly in narrative form ; and of the two it would 
seem less obviously impressive to clothe the lesson in di- 
dactic admonitory language under the name of an apostle, 
than to shape it as a story, — making it arise spontaneously 
and dramatically in the course of familiar intercourse with 
Jesus himself. 

In speaking of the origin of the gospels, two factors 
must always be taken into account ; the spontaneity of 
tradition, and the free choice of the individual writers. 
Even in the fourth gospel, where traditional data are most 
arbitrarily treated, the writer's licence is still held within 
certain limiting conditions. The synoptical gospels follow 
more submissively the growth and bias of tradition ; they 
are no uniform original creations of a single mind, but re- 
sults of the long continued efforts of successive compilers to 
adapt the legendary material to existing exigencies ; so 
that in assigning dates to them much diversity of opinion 
may be expected to arise from the length of time really 
occupied in the process, and from the partial choice of a 
special chronological epoch in the protracted line of their 
formation. Yet all three documents will be found to have 
a specific tendency, to evince a more or less determinate 
purpose, a disposition to neutralize existing varieties of 
opinion, and to pave the way for Catholic establishment. 
In every case the writer's theory or policy of course exer- 
cises a modifying influence over his narrative. Matthew 
represents especially the Judaical tradition, but with inter- 
mingling Catholic concession ; Luke is a conciliatory 
1 Gal. ii. 2. Rom. ii. 16. 



THE OTHER GOSPELS. 



313 



aggregate of Judaical notions and narratives superadded 
to a Pauline basis, which, next to the genuine Pauline 
Epistles, may be considered as the purest and most im- 
portant document of Paulinism ; in Mark the original 
intent of gospel writing, namely, that of "good tidings" 
or salutary doctrine, sinks almost entirely into mere narra- 
tive — a narrative singularly Catholic and practical, which 
instead of attempting to combine and harmonize disputable 
points of doctrine, adopts the safer plan of omitting them. 
And if, according to what seems to be the better opinion, 
this narrative be a mere secondary compilation, it will 
simplify the subject to state in the first place some of the 
reasons on which the inference of its derivative character is 
founded, before entering on the problem of the two parent 
gospels. 

Mark. 

The problem as to Mark's originality, first mooted by 
Storr on one side and by Griesbach and Saunier on the other, 
has recently been much debated ; Ritschl, Weisse, Wilke, 
Ewald, Thiersch, and others contending for Mark's priority; 
but the truer view seems to be that of Baur, Schwegler, 
De Wette, and Kostlin, placing him last in order. 1 In 
considering the matter it is necessary to distinguish the 
Mark mentioned by Papias in Eusebius as entirely different 
in character from the canonical Mark ; the latter appear- 
ing to have been unknown down to the time of Irenaeus. 
The fact that the whole of the actual Mark, except about 
twenty-four or twenty-seven verses, was to be found in 
Matthew or Luke, at first suggested the hypothesis that 
Mark was the common source of the others ; but this did 
not account for the discrepancies and additions ; and the 
forced efforts of Wilke to make the writer's own glosses 

1 See Kostlin's Ursprnng u. Composition der Synoptischen Evangelien, 
1853; Hilgenfeld, Die Evangelien,! 85 i; Bleek's SynoptischeErklarung,i.p.4. 



314 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

into later interpolations proved fatal to his theory. The 
name of Mark, the evidently Petrinic and neutral charac- 
ter of the gospel, added to the tradition of its Roman 
origin, internally confirmed by Latinisms and other indica- 
tions, seem -unfavourable to priority ; for the oldest gospel 
writing was probably Aramaic ; and Mark's suppression of 
controversial matter seems to indicate that advanced period 
of church development when unity having been to a great 
extent secured, it seemed more prudent to drop debateable 
topics than to discuss them. In regard to this it is re- 
markable that at the very point where in Matthew the 
evangelist encountered the Sermon on the Mount (i. 21), 
he suddenly passes to Luke ; and that his language betraj^s 
a leaning towards Docetic views of Christ, 1 and an aversion 
to the human origin expressed in the genealogies. A late 
date is also suggested by the alteration of Christ's pre- 
diction of his personal return during the lifetime of indi- 
viduals then present 2 into a mere " establishment of the 
kingdom," without referring to a personal coming ; there 
are also several apparent allusions to later circumstances 
and legends; 3 and the relation of dependency becomes 
more and more evident when we detect the later compiler 
missing the original meaning in parallel passages. Thus 
in Mark ix. 6, the fear of Peter is inadequately accounted 
for ; the antecedent cloud and voice, the natural causes of 
fear in Matthew (xvii. 6), being placed after the effect. 
In chapter ix. 36 the omission of the verses (Matt, xviii. 

1 This is seen in the opening verse (i. 1) in the change of "6 t€ktovos vios" 
(Matt. xiii. 55) into " 6 Tf/crwi/ 6 vtos Mapias" (Mark vi. 3); also in the 
omission of the story of the infancy, a usual symptom of gnosticism occurring 
in the Clementines, the Diatessaron of Tatian, etc. 

2 Matt. x. 23 ; xvi. 28. 

3 Comp. xvi. 17 with Acts ii. 4, and xxviii. 3. Mark seems to hold 
the balance even between asceticism and luxury ; be omits the passages Matt, 
xi. 19, Luke vii. 34; but also omits Matt. xix. 10— comp. Mark x 13; he 
sanctions the possession of sandals, and even of two coats, if not worn togetber 
(ch. vi. 9 compared with Matt. x. 10, Luke ix. 3). His corrected citation 
of the words (Isai. lvi. 7), " house of prayer for all nations" (ch. xi. 17) 
seems already to betray the pretensions of Roman Catholicism. 



THE OTHER GOSPELS. 



315 



3; comp. Luke ix. 47) pointing out the humility and 
innocence of children as the true standard of Christian 
dignity, interrupts the connection, and we abruptly and 
unexpectedly pass from the subject originally proposed, 
namely, the rivalry among the apostles, to that of general 
benevolence. There is a similar incongruity in chapter 
xii. 34; where after the commendation bestowed upon 
the Scribe, we are startled by the announcement — " no 
one after that durst ask him any questions ; " x as if 
instead of approval, the answer of Christ had been a refu- 
tation. Again, in ch. iii. 16, 17, there is a grammatical 
inconsequence arising probably from a too hasty and literal 
transference from Luke vi. 14, sending us three verses 
back to look for the governing verb ; and the malediction 
of the fig-tree in ch. xi. 13, is prefaced by an inserted 
notice ("the time of figs was not yet"), making the whole 
transaction seem utterly inappropriate and unreasonable. 
The expostulatory remark of Jesus occurring in Mark iv. 
13, is not found elsewhere, 2 and is probably caused by 
Mark's not having understood the exact meaning of the 
encomium previously passed by Jesus on the apostles; 3 in 
Matthew parables are supposed to act as tests of spiritual 
aptitude, and the apostles, though ignorant in the present 
instance of the intended moral, are congratulated on their 
superiority to the unapprehensive vulgar in having by their 
enquiries shewed that they understood at least so much, 
that there was a hidden sense beneath the literal one, and 
that the narrative was not to be taken in its obvious sense. 
Mark looks only to the seeming contradiction between the 
prior commendation of the apostle's intelligence, and the 

1 Comp. Matt. xxii. 46 ; Luke xx. 40. It should be noticed that the dis- 
approval of burnt-offerings and sacrifices here introduced by Mark (xii. 33), 
agrees with the view of the Clementines and the gospel used by the gnostic 
Ebionites. The repeated inversion of Matthew's arrangement of the com- 
mandments (xv. 19 ; xix. 18) by Mark, who, in each instance, makes adultery 
stand before murder (vii. 21 ; x. 19), is another example of the same kind. 

2 Matt. xiii. 16. Luke viii. 10. 

3 Matt. xiii. 11, 16. 



316 



TUBINGEN RESULTS. 



necessity of an explanation ; moreover, in the passage sub- 
sequently borrowed from Luke 1 lie introduces irrelevant 
matter, making the condition of spiritual wealth so aptly 
placed in Matthew (xiii. 12) seem wholly unconnected and 
meaningless. Other instances of the same kind 2 are 
noticed by DeWette in his "Introduction;" and we are 
justified by the circumstances in applying the following 
rale, that when of two evidently correlated narratives, a 
longer and a shorter one, the latter appears destitute of 
meaning and connection without referring to the longer, 
the longer must be supposed to be the original, the shorter 
a derivative epitome. And it little affects the inference 
that the shorter account contains here and there a few un- 
essential expletives not found in the longer. When, for 
instance, the Baptist declares himself unworthy to unloose 
the shoes of Christ, 3 the attitude of "stooping down" 
supplied by Mark (i. 7) seems extremely unimportant. 
Mark evidently aims at a semblance of originality through 
the introduction of trivial explanatory explanations suited 
for rhetorical effect. Of such a nature are the words of 
command addressed by Jesus to the waters (iv. 39), to the 
devil (v. 8), and to Jairus' daughter ; 4 the unseemly 
amplification of Luke's description of the daemoniac 
(Mark ix. 42) into " he fell on the ground and wallowed 
foaming ;" 5 the redundancy supplied in regard to the 
glistening raiment at the transfiguration, "so that no 
fuller on earth could white them" (ix. 3) ; also several 
incidental notices of the sympathetic feelings of Jesus, such 

1 Mark iv. 24, 25. Luke viii. 18. 

2 In Matthew "salt of the earth" is an attributive distinction conferred on 
the apostles ; in Luke (xiv. 34) it becomes a general figurative type of Christian 
constancy, accompanied -with a warning to the apostles ; in Mark ix. 49, 60, 
it is difficult to say what it means. 

3 Luke iii. 16. 

4 Ch. v. 41. In the latter case there is a short address in Luke viii. 54. 

5 Ch. ix. 30. Strauss (Leben Jesu, 2, p. 259, tr.) remarks on the case of 
the dremoniac on the Persean shore described in Mark v. 1, that the adju- 
ration by God ascribed to the possessed person by Mark could not have been 
original ; and that Luke viii. 26 is less original than Matthew viii. 28. 



THE OTHER GOSPELS. 317 

as his being " moved with compassion" (i. 41), his "taking 
up children in his arms" (ix. 36; x. 16), and probably 
also the considerate intimation that the aged Zebedee had 
with him certain "hired servants" (i. 20), and so was not 
left entirely helpless and alone when his sons quitted him. 
The writer's aim in these instances seems to be to "address 
the senses," — to separate the fact into distinct specialities 
so as to make it as dramatically clear as possible to the 
imagination. 1 Thus of the woman with the issue of blood 
it is said (ch. v. 29) that she " felt in her body that she 
was healed ;" and whereas Luke (viii. 43) had reasonably 
inferred from Matthew's account of her having been so 
long ill that she had " spent all her living on physicians " 
without any good result, Mark felt justified in stating at 
length how that " she had suffered many things of many 
physicians, spent all she had, and instead of getting better 
rather grew worse" (ch. v. 26). Explanations of this sort 
were readily suggested by natural probability, without 
implying any additional source of information. The fact 
of Simon and Andrew being brothers suggested their 
living together in the same house (i. 29) ; the sick of the 
palsy being "borne of four" (ii. 3) may be presumed to 
have been a natural consequence of the shape of the bed ; 
the priesthood of Abiathar (ii. 26) was given in history ; 
the sleeping of Jesus " in the hinder part of the vessel on 
a pillow" (iv. 38) would easily occur without any docu- 
mentary warrant or any great stretch of imagination ; so 
too of the mention of the Herodians with the Pharisees 
(iii. 6 ; viii. 15), the two parables containing no original 
thought (iv. 26 ; xiii. 33) ; — two miracles of which the one 
repeats the somewhat repulsive details of the other (vii. 33 ; 
viii. 23), and the singular remark (xi. 16) that Christ "would 
not suffer any man to carry any vessel through the temple." 
A writer thus readily undertaking to supply minor circum- 
stances of this sort unhistorically may have gratuitously 
1 The well-known expedient adopted in the spiritual exercises of Loyola. 



318 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

invented others, such as the locality of " Dalmanutha" 
(viii. 10), the precise description of the Canaanitish woman 
(vii. 26), the parentage of Matthew or Levi (ii. 14), and 
the descendants of Simon of Cyrene (xv. 21), the proper 
name of blind "Bartimseus" (x. 46), the attempt of the 
friends of Jesus to apprehend him as insane (iii. 21), 
the exact number of the daernoniacal swine (ch. v. 13), the 
flight of the young man in a state of nudity (xiv. 51, 52), 
and the reiterated crowing of the cock (xiv. 72). 

Luke. 

" Luke," the modified representative of Pauline evan- 
gelical tradition, ranks in Baur's estimate next to "John" 
in the distinct exhibition of a purpose. It seems to be 
the source of several narratives and derivative applications 
in the fourth gospel ; as in the significant instances, Luke 
xiii. 33 ; xvi. 31 ; and the protracted sojourn in Samaria, 
symbolically representing those preparatory "labours" for 
the Gentile " harvest " which the older apostles were un- 
deservedly to reap. 1 But the purpose of the actual gospel 
must be carefully distinguished from that of its original 
basis. The original Luke seems to have had a specifically 
Pauline and anti- Jewish character. To this belong the 
emphatically transcendental character of Christ as Saviour 
of the world generally attested by the very daemons ; 2 
various sayings and parables either peculiar to Luke, 3 or 
peculiarly modified by him; 4 and more or less obviously 
referring to Gentile conversion ; the prefiguring the cha- 
racteristic activity of the Gentile apostle in Christ, whose 
mission is said to be to travel (iv. 43 ; xiii. 33) ; the 

1 John iv. 38. See what has heen observed above as to the adoption of 
Peter and John by Gentile churches as their apostolic founders. 

2 Luke iv. 34, 41. Comp. vi. 18 ; ix. 1 ; x. 17, 18. 

3 For example, those of the good Samaritan (x. 30), of the Pharisee and 
publican (xviii. 10), the story of Martha and Mary, etc. The parable of the 
prodigal son seems not to have been in Marcion's gospel. 

4 For example, that of the supper, Luke xiv. 16. Comp, Matt. xxii. 1. 



THE OTHER GOSPELS- 319 

abridgment of the Gralilaean mission, and approximation to 
the fourth gospel in the relative extension of his agency in 
Samaria and Judaea ; the varying terms in which the cessa- 
tion of the law and the legitimate commencement of a 
new dispensation are mentioned in ch. xvi. 16, and the 
prominent position assigned in advance of the Judaically 
conceived sermon 1 which stands foremost in Matthew, 
to a number of dicta evidently bearing on the historical 
circumstances of the development of Christianity ; e.g. the 
prophet's rejection in his own country (iv. 24), his exten- 
sive missionary labours abroad (iv. 43), the allusions to 
INaaman the Syrian and the widow of Sarepta, the mission 
of the physician not to the sound but to the sick, the 
freedom of Christians in regard to fasts and Sabbaths, the 
new cloth and new wine, etc. ; all which illustrations of 
Pauline theory are thus made to claim the reader's atten- 
tion more forcibly and emphatically. The account of the 
raising of Jairus' daughter (viii. 43) varies characteris- 
tically from that in Matthew in the implied censure cast 
on the apostles, not only in the preliminary reply to the 
common-place remark of Peter, but in tacitly including 
them among the scoffers, and the postponement of the 
narrative in Lnke to a relatively later period, 2 making 
their dullness and blindness seem the more inexcusable. 
Indeed Luke's gospel manifests, like John's, a strong ten- 
dency to depreciate " the twelve," and a comparison of 
the ninth and tenth chapters especially shews a marked 
intention to place them in a position of inferiority in com- 
parison with the missionary " seventy" 3 representing the 

1 The particulars of the sermon seem here to be intentionally contrasted 
with Matthew ; here the sermon being pronounced standing instead of sitting 
(is this an allusion to the " seat" of Moses ?), and on a plain instead of on 
a mount. 

2 From the end of ch. v. Comp. Matt. ix. 18. 

3 The supposed number of the nations of the world. The improbability of 
an historical basis for the account of the "seventy" is noticed by Strauss and 
by De Wette ; nor could such a story have arisen in the way of legend in the 
early times of Jew- Christianity. 



320 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

apostleship of the Gentiles. Thus they are shewn to be 
spiritually dull and unprolific (ix. 13, 45), faithless and 
perverse (ver. 41), insensible even to the glories of the 
transfiguration (ver. 32), moreover as childishly ambitious 
(ver. 46), jealous (ver. 49), revengeful, and ignorant 
of the true spirit of the gospel (ver. 54) ; while all ex- 
pressions of triumphant success and congratulation, as 
well as the special instructions given in Matthew to the 
twelve, are here reserved for the " seventy : " 1 several 
of these instructions agree exactly with St. Paul's ; 2 the 
honorary titles of "salt of the earth" and "light of the 
world/' specially applied to the apostles in Matthew, 3 are 
diverted from their original intent by being made general 
or hypothetical. 4 Peter's confession 5 is mentioned, but 
without the high -wrought encomia and attributed prece- 
dency accompanying it in Matthew (ch. xvi.); the merit 
of the blunt reply being moreover greatly qualified by 
what is significantly said immediately afterwards. 6 And 
it should be observed that these instances of apostolic per- 
versity are accumulated at that particular point in the 
gospel where the ministry of Jesus passes to the Gentiles 
here represented by Samaria (ix. 51) ; the interspersed 
narratives serving especially to illustrate their darkling 
condition (ix. 45), and their t3ndency to linger behind 
among Judaisers (ix. 59, etc.). The character of the 
sermon, as given in Luke, is fragmentary and desultory, 
leaning apparently on Matthew, while arbitrarily varying 

1 Comp. Matt. x. 40, and Luke x. 16. Ch. viii. 16 refers to ver. 10, and 
contains a warning to the apostles, — who are not, as in Matt. xii. 49, distinctly 
pointed out as the true brethren. See ver. 21. 

2 1 Cor. ix. 7, and x. 27. 

3 Ch. v. 13, 14. Matthew xviii. 18 is also omitted. 
* See Luke viii. 16, 18; xiv. 34. 

5 Luke ix. 20. It seems at first anomalous that in the Petrine gospel of 
Mark the encomium on Peter should have been omitted ; but this suppression 
is probably only part of the neutral plan of the catholic Mark, wbo would 
avoid assigning exclusive precedency to Peter, and as his organ and interpreter 
might have seemed to make him act the ungraceful part of bis own panegyrist. 

e Comp. ix. 23, 24, 33; xxii. 31, 57. 



THE OTHER GOSPELS. 321 

and altering the pointed antithetic statements of the latter 
into general maxims of morality ; avoiding the idea of 
legal fulfilment, 1 omitting the laudatory epithets specially 
addressed to the apostles in Matthew, and as little seem- 
ingly disposed to commend their persons as their opinions. 
Of this the difference in the explanations of the parable of 
the sower may be quoted as an instance. In Mark (ch. 
iv.) and Luke (ch. viii.) Christ is made to speak in 
parables for the purpose of concealment. In Matthew 
xiii. 10, the reason of so speaking is said to be the general 
intellectual condition of mankind, rendering parables the 
most fitting mode of addressing them. For men by Grod's 
inscrutable pre-arrangement 2 are of two classes ; there are 
the " e-)(ovTes" and the " ovk e^oz/re? ;" those who under- 
stand and improve ; and those who being incapable of 
understanding invariably lose and forget all that they 
momentarily seemed to have learned. " Therefore " 
parable is an appropriate form of instruction ; it serves to 
distinguish the apt from the unintelligent ; to the former 
the lesson ceases with the sound, and the little seemingly 
gained is wholly lost ; whereas by those, who, like the 
apostles, had sufficient spiritual insight to recognise a 
parable as containing an ulterior meaning, substance as 
well as form is apprehended, and the parable becomes rich 
in its significance, a ready revelation of divine mysteries. 3 
In Luke not only is a different turn given to the narrative 
by making it seem as if Christ patronised a policy of con- 
cealment, but the apostles are treated on an entirely dif- 
ferent footing ; instead of being felicitated as belonging 

1 In xvi. 17, it seems that the original reading was " tuv Koyoou ftov" — 
" one tittle of my words." See Baur, Christenthum u. Kirche, pp. 69, 70. 

2 Implied in the word " SeSorai." — See John xii. 39 ; Acts xxviii. 26. 

3 "Mysteries," that is, not in the sense of things incomprehensible or 
intentionally concealed, but things which once dark are now disclosed (1 Cor. 
ii. 7, 10). The notion that Christ really countenances intentional conceal- 
ment in this passage has been yery properly repudiated. See Baur's 
Evangelien, p. 464. De Wette's remarks on Olshausen's Commentary (on 
Matthew, p. 137); and see "Essays and Beviews," p. 292. Lessing's 
"Erziehung," sec. 76. Lechler's "History of Deism," p. 189. 

21 



322 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

to the better class of souls, the real " seers and hearers," 
they are warned in a somewhat desultory paragraph to be 
careful to be among the number of true hearers (viii. 18) ; 
and after themselves hearing aright to be effectually to 
others that "light of the world" which was their proper 
mission as the disciples of Christ. 1 

The means of distinguishing the original Pauline gospel 
from the actual or canonical one is principally obtained 
from the notices of the gospel of Marcion given by Ter- 
tullian and Epiphanius. Marcion's gospel was not, it 
seems, as once supposed, a corruption of our Luke, but an 
early form of the original out of which our Luke was 
eventually developed. Now if the passages omitted by 
Marcion are found to injure the connection or otherwise to 
bear indubitable marks of later origin, we may assume 
Marcion's text to be purer and nearer the original than 
our own. If, for instance, omitting the preliminary 
chapters, we suppose the gospel to have begun, as in 
Marcion, with ch. iv. 31-37, and then read ver. 16, we 
escape the anomaly in ver. 23 of a reference to events at 
Capernaum, which are still future and have to be related 
afterwards. So in regard to ch. xi. 49-51, omitted acord- 
ing to Epiphanius by Marcion, the omission of this 
evident citation from the words of Jesus in Matthew is an 
improvement; in xiii. 28, the words "all the just," — as 
given by Marcion, — instead of "Abraham, Isaac," etc.? 
agree better with the context ; in ch. xvi. 17, Marcion's 
reading, " twv \oyov /jlov," avoids the absurdity of saying 
almost in the same breath that the law is repealed and in 
force ; the verse 21, ch. xviii., was absent in Marcion, and 
the omission enables us to avoid another senseless contra- 
diction ; in these and other similar instances originality 
seems to be on Marcion's side ; if he had no conceivable 
motive for suppressing what others had strong reasons for 
adding, we may assume the earlier state of the document 
1 See Baur, Evangelien, pp. 466, 467. 



THE OTHER GOSPELS. 323 

to have been the omission, and that it was not Marcion 
who mutilated, but later compilers who interpolated. 

But the original materials of the gospel have been 
amplified and modified by a later writer ; and this is done 
in that spirit of Catholic compromise to which so much of 
the New Testament literature owes its existence. Pro- 
fessor Zeller was the first to shew, on the basis of " Acts," 
that the third gospel has not only the same author but the 
same object, i.e. to bend history to the purpose of media- 
tion ; to treat Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, but to make 
the efficacy of his Messiahship universal. In this sense 
Judaical additions are subjoined to the Pauline basis in 
such a manner that, though incongruities and incon- 
sistencies remain, neither of the two constituent elements 
retain their full force and intensity, but yield to softening 
influences modifying the whole. Among the more im- 
portant additions are the accounts of the infancy, of the 
baptism, temptation, and triumphant entry into Jeru- 
salem, all those traits of derivation and ritualic observance 
identifying Jesus with the Jewish Messiah, most of the 
examples of Old Testament fulfilment, 1 the genealogy, 
combining Jewish and Gentile interests by tracing the 
parentage through Abraham to Adam and to God, and 
several passages referring to the later circumstances of 
Christian parties, among which Baur places the story of 
the prodigal, and others, as the apologue of the unpro- 
fitable fig-tree, alluding to the destruction of Jerusalem. 2 
Curious variations occur at the point of contact between 
the old and the newly added portions in the fourth 
chapter, where the hand of the secondary writer is seen in 
the explanatory notice, " Where he was brought up," and 
the suggestion of the " power of the spirit " as a reason for 
the return of Jesus into Galilee, which as told by Matthew 

1 Although Marcion too appealed to the Old Testament occasionally. — See 
6, 3, 7 ; 7, 27 ; 20, 41, 44. 

2 Sec. 13, 1-9, 34, 35; 19, 41, 44. 



324 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

(iv. 12) might have seemed as a result of fear. In the 
inversion of the order of procedure as to Nazareth and 
Capernaum leading to incongruities in the narrative, — 
Jesus complaining of a rejection at Nazareth and alluding 
to events at Capernaum before their occurrence, — the 
writer seems to have been influenced by the idea of 
restoring the natural and true order, 1 and especially the 
wish to shew from the first how the calling of the Gentiles 
resulted from the previous obstinacy of the Jews. 2 

Several modifications introduced by the later writer 
are supposed to have been suggested by a wish to dis- 
countenance the views of Marcion ; such as the omission 
at viii. 20, of the words " who is my mother and who 
my brethren," 3 seeming to favour gnostic docetism ; the 
change of the aorist " ovBels eyvco," at x. 22, into the 
present, 4 and the substitution of the contradictory word 
" vo/jlov" for " rcov Xoycov /jlov" probably in the idea of 
restoring the balance of ecclesiastical authority by import- 
ing a true reading from Matt. v. 18, although the cessation 
of "the law" had been announced in the preceding verse. 
The allusions to the destruction of Jerusalem 5 were calcu- 
lated to promote the idea of a universal Christianity in 
proportion as the prejudices of Judaism were discounten- 
anced, and in a very emphatic realisation of prophecy the 
first turned out to be last and the "last first" (xiii. 30). 
Conformably with this theory of its origin the preface 
or proemium of the gospel distinguishes three several 
periods or stages of its production ; first, the tradition 
handed down by the original eye witnesses and ministers, 

1 Matt.iv. 13. 

2 This, which is also one of the main points insisted on in Acts, is here 
established by the authority of Jesus himself; the " warpis" Nazareth pre- 
figuring Judaism generally. 

* Matt. xii. 46. 

4 Schwegler's Zeitalter, 1. 255. Because the gnostics relied on this 
passage to prove that no real revelation of the true God had been made before 
Christianity. 

5 Chaps, xiii., and xx. 42-14. 



THE OTHER GOSPELS. 325 

(" avToirrai kcli virr\peTai") ; secondly, many elaborate 
antecedent registries of these materials, ("Sirjyrjo-eis") ; and 
lastly, the actual writer, whose object, in relation to his 
numerous predecessors, is said to be " fcaOefys ypayjrai air 
a PXys>" — m °ther words, fullness, regularity, and cer- 
tainty ; not so much to supply original matter, as to 
express the already existing materials of tradition with 
due order and accuracy consistently with his own general 
views of prior and later events ( " ireifkripo^op^fjbeva ev 
7]\iiv irpayiiara^), and especially to secure the grand 
desideratum of " aafycCkeia" — i.e. the safe and comfortable 
acquiescence calculated to promote the governmental unity 
which was the great aim of the literary efforts of the time. 



Matthew. 

The other gospels being all more or less theoretical and 
derivative, the last chance of historical certainty seems to 
rest with Matthew, from whom in fact Luke and Mark 
repeatedly borrow. 1 But this gospel too is no uniformly 
original work ; although prior to the others, it must still 
in its actual form be considered as a comparatively late 
compilation. Its very title is problematical. Matthew is 
said to have written a gospel called the "Logia," or 
sayings of the Lord, in Hebrew. But though this descrip- 
tion agrees to a certain extent with the didactic character 
of the present gospel, especially the sermon on the mount, 
we seek in vain for any clearly traceable chain of his- 
torical connection between these Hebrew memorials of the 
" Logia" and our Greek Matthew. Traces of an early 
Hebrew gospel bearing the name of Matthew occur 
abundantly in the older patristic writings, in Papias, 
Hegesippus, Justin, and the Clementine Homilies. But 
this gospel is not attached exclusively to the name of 

1 Comp. Baur, Evangelien, p. 512. 



326 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

Matthew ; it is sometimes called the " gospel of Peter," 
sometimes that of "the apostles," of the " Ebionites," of 
the " Egyptians," or of the " Hebrews ;" all being pos- 
sibly but varying aspects of the early evangelical tradition 
which circulated among the first Christians as " the 
gospel," as yet unfixed to a precise form or attached to a 
peculiar name. The multifarious forms of this document? 
although more nearly agreeing with " Matthew" than 
with the other gospels, are not identical with it ; they 
have no such verbal agreement as might be expected in a 
translation ; passages occur in citations which, while agree- 
ing with each other, differ from all of our present gospels ; 
and Jerome would hardly have taken the trouble to make 
a new translation of the "gospel of the Hebrews" into 
Greek had he thought that in the canonical Matthew 
he possessed a satisfactory translation already. The con- 
troversy of Symmachus too, at the end of the second 
century or commencement of the third, against Matthew, 1 
implies a great and manifest variation from the supposed 
Hebrew original. In his later writings Jerome expresses 
himself very doubtfully as to the identity, declaring more- 
over the author of the present Greek Matthew to be wholly 
unknown. Many peculiarities in the actual gospel indicate 
a later date, 2 and its general character is that of the other 
synoptics, namely a conciliatory syncretism. A Judaical 
spirit predominates ; but this is qualified by elements of a 
very different nature. Thus with the mandate to confine 
the offer of salvation to the house of Israel, not to " give 
what is holy to dogs," or " cast pearls before swine," 3 are 

1 Euseb. H. E., 6, 17. 

2 The aorist form of the passage " ovdeis eyva rov irarspa" etc., cited in 
the CI. Homilies (18, 4, 11 ; 13, 20), is probably earlier than the "eiriyt- 
i/&>cncei" occurring in Matthew xi. 27 ; Luke x. 22, which seems to have 
been introduced to rebut the gnostic inference dating the commencement of 
genuine revelation from Christ. 

3 Ch. vii. 6 ; x. 6 ; xv. 24, 26 ; xix. 28 ; xxiii. 3. Dr. Hilgenfeld recog- 
nises in ch. v. 19; vii. 6, 15-23, a special repudiation of St. Paul's extreme 
liberality. 



THE OTHER GOSPELS. 327 

conjoined inconsistent intimations of its intended univer- 
sality, 1 and even of the rejection of the Jews (viii. 12 ; 
xxii. 7, 8) ; sometimes the law and its institutions are 
alluded to as eternal (ch. v. 17, 19 ; xxiii. 2, 3) ; some- 
times as superseded by a new and incompatible dispensa- 
tion (ix. 16) ; sometimes the kingdom of heaven is repre- 
sented as a visible and sudden revelation of Messiah ; 2 
sometimes as a gradual unseen process of evolution, like 
the growth of seed, or the secret fermentation in meal 
(xiii. 31, 32, 33) ; in xv. 24, the act of Jesus contra- 
dicts the illiberality of his previous utterance ; xxii. 43, 
controverts the notion of the Davidical Messiah which in 
xxi. 15, 16 is apparently sanctioned. Hastening over the 
preliminary circumstances of the life of Jesus, some of 
which {e.g. the genealogy and supernatural conception) so 
ill cohere as to supersede and contradict each other, the 
writer at once proceeds to what seems from the prominent 
position assigned to it to be his main object, namely, 
the Messianic doctrine expressed in the "sayings" or 
" sermon," in which the relation of Christian feeling 3 to 
the old dispensation is emphatically stated to be one not 
of novelty and change, but continuation and fulfilment. 
The nature of this fulfilment (i.e., the Christian " right- 
eousness" or " ZifcaioGvvr)") is described in several nega- 
tive and several positive instances; and though we here 
very probably possess a generally correct account of the 
meaning and teaching of Jesus, it seems altogether un- 
likely 4 that his lessons, instead of being occasional, were 
originally drawn up and pronounced by himself in their 
present form of a connected artificial address. To the doc- 

1 Chaps, viii. 11 ; xx. 12; xxii. 1, 10; xxviii. 19. 

2 Chaps, x. 23 ; xvi. 27, 28 ; xxiv. 29, 34. 

3 That is, the fundamental idealism, the spiritual prospective treasures of 
futurity ; entire renunciation of the world while yet, in hope, possessing all 
things. 

4 Especially when in iv. 23 we find Jesus represented as already preaching 
the " gospel of the kingdom" "before the sermon. 



328 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

trinal succeed practical illustrations of the agency of Jesus 
exemplified in a consecutive series of miraculous cures, and 
treated as fulfilments of Messianic prophecy (viii. 17) ; 
concluding with a general summing up (ix. 35) pointedly 
corresponding to the prior statement of the theme in iv. 
23. An artificially contrived transition suggested by the 
scattered and helpless condition of the populace (ix. 36), 
in the absence of a sufficiency of labourers or shepherds, 
leads naturally to the formal appointment of their intended 
apostolic guides in the tenth chapter ; in which various 
anticipations of later circumstances have been recognised, 
which to those taking the narrative as literally historical 
will of course appear as prophecies. Chapter thirteen in- 
troduces another phase of the ministry of Jesus in a conse- 
cutive series of parables ; these too are viewed as special 
Messianic criteria prophetically preappointed (xiii. 14, 
curiously varying from the citation of the same passage 1 
in John xii. 40). From chap. xi. the narrative of Christ's 
career becomes more dramatically and consecutively active ; 
an invitation to the babes, the meek, the sorrowful, accom- 
panied by menaces of woe held out to the obstinate and 
disobedient, is followed by varied instances of acceptance 
or rejection, and the desultory protracted conflict with the 
Pharisees, beginning with the healing on the Sabbath, 
and ending with the apprehension, accusation, and death. 
Now, although with some very evident exceptions, such as 
the circumstances of the infancy and others already ad- 
verted to, there may be no antecedent improbability in the 
substance of Matthew's narrative, there is a very decided 
artificiality in its grouping and arrangement ; and we have 
to consider how far the artificial structure of the story may 
have affected its material accuracy. It is no longer pos- 
sible to make the divergency of other gospel narratives, 
proved to have been guided by unhistorical aims, a ground 
for impeaching that of Matthew ; but the problem of in- 
1 Is. vu 9. 



THE OTHER GOSPELS. 329 

ternal probability still remains to be considered ; and, if it 
be difficult to suppose Jesus to have really confined him- 
self, as here represented, at one time entirely to didactic 
teaching, at another to parables, or to the healing of 
disease, we may be led to suspect that the free manipula- 
tion applied to the structure may have also modified the 
facts. If, apart from the traditional matter now generally 
admitted to be legendary, such as the birth, baptism, and 
temptation, we look merely to the literary form and to the 
writer's peculiar turn of thought, we recognise at once a 
distinct source of possible deviation in the evident bias to 
view all the circumstances of the life of Jesus as predeter- 
mined by certain typical Messianic criteria or prophetical 
necessities, in regard, for instance, to healing disease (iv. 
23, viii. 17), and his silent unobtrusive character (xii. 19), 
which latter trait is obviously inconsistent with his public 
denunciations of the Pharisees, and repeated assertions of 
Messianic dignity in the gospel itself. 1 When we are told 
that Jesus was born of a virgin in order to fulfil a certain 
prophecy, we seem justified in making a considerable de- 
duction from the fact, and ascribing the overplus to pre- 
possession. So constantly is the Old Testament referred 
to as a necessary standard or determining source of even- 
tualities, that we hardly know in special cases whether the 
citation is made for the sake of the fact or the fact for the 
sake of the citation. When Jesus is made to ride on two 
donkeys (xxi. 2, 7), or sent into Egypt in order to fulfil 
an assumed saying of Hosea, it seems as if the latter were 
the case, although after all Hosea's meaning is mistaken ; 
the former, on the other hand, would appear the more 
probable supposition when the gratuitous application of an 
utterly irrelevant Scripture passage is resorted to in order 
to obtain prophetical support for the return of Joseph to 
Nazareth (ii. 23). And not the facts only but the speeches 
seem to have undergone a modifying change. This has 
1 Ch. v. 17; vii. 29; xi. 14; xxi. 16, etc. 



330 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

been already noticed in regard to the sermon ; and it is 
especially observable in the eschatological discourse in the 
twenty-fourth chapter, admitted by candid interpreters to 
be incompatible in its actual form with any possible utter- 
ance of Jesus. From the silence of the fourth gospel no 
inference can be drawn, since this is no longer supposed to 
be the genuine work of a personal witness 1 of its delivery ; 
but how reconcile so distinct an announcement of the fall 
of Jerusalem by Jesus with the silence of the Apocalypse 
in regard to this event ; for the Apocalypse, while admit- 
ting a partial destruction of the city, assumes its general 
continuance ? And if, according to what appears to be 
the inevitable inference under the circumstances, the 
"Zacharias son of Barachias," who closes the series of 
persecuted prophets in chap, xxiii. 35, must be identified 
with the person said to have been murdered by the zealots 
in Josephus, 2 we have here a distinct proof not only that the 
gospel was written after the destruction of Jerusalem, but 
that it ascribes to Jesus words referring to later circum- 
stances which he could not really have spoken. 3 In short, 

1 Mark xiii. 3. 

2 B. J., iv. 5, 4. Comp. Zeitschrift fur "Wiss. Theologie, vol. vi., p. 88. 

3 Only when thus understood do the subsequent words become intelligible — 
" behold your house is left unto you desolate ;" it will remain so, adds the 
writer in effect, until you are heartily and sincerely converted (Matt, xxiii. 
38, 39). A curious surmise has been latterly current in regard to these ob- 
viously correlated passages, which may ultimately prove to afford a useful 
illustration of the true origin of the gospel. In Luke (xi. 49-xiii. 34) the 
passages are detached, and are ostensibly quoted from some other source styled 
the " Wisdom of God." Now the so cited words are not in the Old Testa- 
ment, and Jesus can scarcely have meant to quote himself under the form 
" cnrey." It has therefore been supposed that some lost Christian writing is 
referred to, in which the Divine Wisdom was represented as taunting the Jews 
after the ruin of their city with tbeir obstinacy in rejecting Jesus. The 
" 7roo-affis" is quite appropriate to the overtures of Divine Wisdom, and the 
expression, may have been somewhat inappositely transferred to Jesus by those 
who began to recognise in him the personified wisdom of the Old Testament 
Apocrypha. The " \oyos" of the fourth gospel may be viewed as an advance 
on the " (ro<pta 0eov," just as the many journeys to Jerusalem there recorded 
are probably a development of the "troaaias." But it then occurs to ask, are 
there any other probable traces in the gospels of this supposed writing? 
Strauss finds a seemingly analogous reference in Matt. xi. 19, Luke vii. 34, at 
the close of a similar commination to the Jews for not listening to the Baptist; 



CAUSES OF PSEUDONYMOUS WRITING. 331 

although "Matthew" makes nearer approaches to history 
than the other gospels, the history is far from being 
reliable and pure ; it may have a closer affinity to the 
original tradition than "Mark" or "John"; but it is 
no accurate biography, and the authorship here, as in so 
many other instances, must be regarded as mainly titular. 

On the Causes of Pseudonymous Writing, 

The wholesale falsification seemingly implied in so 
abundant a crop of spurious literature as that indicated in 
the foregoing pages no doubt calls imperatively for ex- 
planation. Fictitious authorship in a few cases might be 
overlooked as fortuitous ; not so when it occurs repeatedly 
and generally ; here a general motive is required in order 
to make the fact seem intelligible or even probable. The 
problem touches the very essence and rational justification 
of the inferences of the school of Tubingen. These appear 
at first to bespeak a scheme of deliberate imposture incon- 
sistent alike with primitive simplicity and sound exegesis ; 
so that we are obliged to ask how far they are counten- 
anced by analogy ; whether any general principle can be 
found accounting for the simultaneous appearance of so 
many equivocal pretensions. Now it is certain that pseu- 
donymous writing was from early times a common Israel- 
itish custom. It resulted naturally from the idea of 
inspiration. The prophet was no author in the modern 
sense ; on the contrary his authority was entirely deriva- 
tive, dependent on his assumed character as medium or 
interpreter of the suggestions of another ; as a vehicle of 
that divine enthusiasm which, according to Philo, " super- 
sedes ordinary reason, and occupies the soul's acropolis in 

also in the subsequent passages, Matt. xi. 20 and xi. 25 : the latter of which 
offers a curious parallel to some of the concluding verses in Ecclesiasticus (ch. 
li. 1, 23, 26, 27), suggesting the source of the ideas in which the 'Zo<pia. Oeov 
may have originated. — Zeitschrift fur Wiss. TheoL, vi., p. 84-92. 



332 



TUBINGEN RESULTS. 



its place." 1 Hence, with the exception of writings in which 
the prophet professedly comes forward in his own person, 
most of the Old Testament literature is really anonymous ; 
and when the captivity was succeeded by long political 
subserviency, the same feeling which induced the nation 
to convert its best memories into sanguine anticipations 
led to a transference of the names and forms of its ancient 
literature to current purposes and hopes. Prophecy being 
considered as extinct, and no novel revelation being ex- 
pected until the advent of Messiah, attention was exclu- 
sively directed to the old books, on which all sorts of 
strained interpretations were put in order to wring from 
them a meaning suited to existing circumstances ; and any 
one wishing to address his cotemporaries effectively on his 
own account was constrained to borrow the name, and as 
far as possible the thoughts and style, of some ancient 
Scripture celebrity. There was the same abject intellectual 
subserviency which even now looks to authority alone to 
determine truth ; which has to obtain leave of a cabinet 
minister, a Prussian ambassador, or a bishop, before ven- 
turing to acquiesce in the plainest inferences of reason, or 
to exercise an impartial judgment on the most puerile 
legends of antiquity. Hence the long series of apocalyptic 
writings imitated from Daniel, itself a pseudonym ; and 
hence not only familiar literary names, such as Solomon 
or Ezra, but Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, etc., are 
made to figure over again in the list of authors. 2 Chris- 
tianity, which, itself originally Jewish, adopted so much 
from Judaism, continued the practice of pseudonymous 
writing, this being indeed a necessary result of the con- 
tinuance of the same motives, — namely the combination of 
religious enthusiasm with intellectual feebleness, — the idea 
of inspiration warranting originality and novelty, but 
novelty quite unable to obtain a hearing under the circum- 

1 Philo de Spec. Leg. Mang. ii. 343. See also vol. i. 511. 

2 See an instructive review in the Times newspaper, Jan. 31, 1862. 



CAUSES OF PSEUDONYMOUS WRITING. 333 

stances except under a borrowed name. In an infant 
community forming and growing amid arduous struggles 
and passionate controversies, the religious feelings were 
all powerful, the historical and critical unknown ; indeed 
the mind was preoccupied with notions such as those of 
miracle and of the second coming, contradicting all ex- 
perience and making the very idea of historical continuity 
impossible. There was a maximum of the fanciful, a mini- 
mum of historical exactness. Pseudonymous writing arose 
out of the same kind of over-hasty, unverified feeling which 
is the general source of the mythical. Minds engrossed by 
a dominant idea will be as reckless as to its sources as to 
the forms of its expression ; although the utterance may 
be almost entirely novel and original, the author's deferen- 
tial enthusiasm gives it a retrospective importance, and 
treats it as a genuine product of venerable antiquity. 

The problem of the Christian Pseudonyma has been ably 
treated in a paper by Dr. Kostlin in the Tubingen Theol. 
Journal 1 as a natural result of the peculiar circumstances 
of the post-apostolic age. He observes that all religious 
establishments combine in a greater or less degree a certain 
tendency to change with the characteristic assertion of 
unity, perfection, and stability. Nature urges to improve- 
ment, divergence, adaptation to current circumstances, etc. ; 
but religious establishments have to bring this inevitable 
impulse into real or seeming accordance with the presumed 
infallibility and fixity of revelation ; and hence the con- 
tradictory theory which Roman Catholics call " develop- 
ment ;" that paradoxical union of identity and change, 
that substitution of evolution for addition, that progressive 
immobility or active repose. The talisman holding the 
mysterious compound together in early Christian times was 
the assumed possession of the Holy Spirit; by virtue of 
which the Church still maintains its ability to add doctrine 

1 Die Pseudonyme Litteratur der altesten Kirche, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte 
der Bildung des Kanons.— Tub. Jour. vol. x. p. 149. 



334 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

to doctrine and rite to rite, without any humiliating con- 
fession of error or overt deviation. In its more advanced 
ecclesiastical maturity Christendom had ample instru- 
mental means of altering its laws and doctrines through its 
corporate organization ; not so when, as in the first and 
second centuries after the disappearance of the apostles, 
there was as yet no regularly formed ecclesiastical ma- 
chinery, no generally accredited teachers or determinate 
books to refer to. Yet no period was more prolific of 
change or rife in controversy ; none felt more the imperious 
necessity of an authoritative standard. Appeals to reason- 
ing, though not unknown, were feeble and insufficient ; 
nothing but the absolute responses of revelation, of which 
the apostles had been the unexceptionable vehicles, could 
fully satisfy. So circumstanced, the religious movement 
of the post-apostolie age proceeded on two parallel assump- 
tions : one, the idea of possessing in the all-searching all- 
informing Spirit a perennial source of new views and 
doctrines ; another in the assurance, that since the new, in 
order to be true, must be in perfect harmony with the old, 
such conformity really existed ; in short, that the apostolic 
initiative ruled the present, while the present inspiration 
faithfully reflected and interpreted the past. Wherever 
one of these tendencies prevailed unduly or exclusively of 
the other, something uncongenial, one-sided, or " heretical' ' 
was the result. Thus if the source of movement, the con- 
sciousness of inward illumination predominated, impulsive 
and revolutionary symptoms, such as Gnosticism and Mon- 
tanism, ensued, discarding historical connection and en- 
dangering established authority ; on the other hand, undue 
resistance to change, excessive tenacity of precedent, found 
itself at last isolated and extruded as an unpopular im- 
practicable minority under the name of Ebionitism. From 
the efforts of the two originally contrasted Christian par- 
ties there issued under these influences an abundance of 
writings bearing apostolic names, referring baok to the 



CAUSES OF PSEUDONYMOUS WHITING. 335 

only unimpeachable authority what was engendered by 
existing wants and conceptions, without regard to historical 
propriety or chronological accuracy ; so that early Christian 
literature avowedly swarmed with what we should now 
term forgeries; 1 and it was the difficulty of contending 
with heretical competition in this respect which eventually 
led the Church to abandon the Scripture criterium, and, 
fixing a canonical selection by arbitrary decree, to stand 
mainly on its traditions. 2 Yet it were a mistake to describe 
the literature thus created as intended to deceive ; to pro- 
pose with many of our modern apologists as an inevitable 
alternative the implicit acceptance of the document as 
literally true, or its absolute rejection as useless and fraud- 
ulent. The document so originated is rather the half- 
unconscious utterance of what under the circumstances 
seemed essentially necessary and true ; no critical faculty 
existing to censure or control, and the apparent greatness 
and excellence of the object excusing or concealing the 
literary aberration or misnomer. It could little be antici- 
pated when this innocent fiction was first resorted to, to 
what lengths the principle of pious fraud would eventually 
be carried ; and that the same excuse of the end justi- 
fying the means would be used by future champions of 
Catholic usurpation to override every consideration of 
morality and justice. These instances of pseudonymous 
writing, whether conservative or innovating, are not to be 
estimated by strict modern rules of literary accuracy ; they 
always manifest a deeply rooted feeling of obligation or 
necessity, which, whatever we may think of the assump- 
tions of the writer, excludes any doubt as to the honesty of 
his intentions. Between innovation and precedent, the 
adherents of the general church, the friends of practical 
utility and compromise, strove instinctively to unite and 

1 neirXaff/jLeua ypcupeta, Epiphan. Hser. 26 : " Infinita multitude* apocry- 
phorum librorum et adult erin arum Scripturarum." — lrenseus, Ha?r. i. 20, 1. 

2 "Ergo non ad Scripturas provocandum est." — Tertullian, De Prsescrip. 
Hseret. ch. xix. 



336 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

balance the two co-efficients in the series of writings more 
or less accurately observing a just equipoise, which forms 
the chief material of our canonical literature ; continually 
evolving new suggestions, but always under the semblance 
of continuity and in ostensible agreement with the old. 
Apostolic authority was thus made permanently responsible 
for much having a merely transient interest which was not 
really its own ; and it was thus, that in full persuasion of 
possessing the one spirit from which all revelation flows, 
post- apostolic writers felt authorised to compose the large 
number of Acts, Epistles, Gospels, and Apocalypses, of 
which Fabricius has collected fragments, in the names of 
the dignified antecedents they felt themselves best qualified 
to represent -and most nearly to resemble. 

Kostlin proceeds to give instances illustrating the mental 
strain which was ever seeking an anchorage for advancing 
opinion in the past, and as it were building up a bridge of 
canonical authority behind it. These, if here detailed, 
would reopen the series of exemplifications of the subject 
of the foregoing treatise; namely, of tho spirit and pur- 
pose of the several New Testament writers, and of the 
freedom with which each writer felt himself individually 
privileged to express and carry out his purpose in for- 
warding Christian interests. The Alexandrian allegory, 
the quibbling interpretations of the Rabbis, indicate in 
different ways precisely the same want as that which pro- 
duced the pseudonymous books of the post-apostolic age. 
The old garment could not be discarded, but it could be 
patched ; it was necessary to adapt it to the fashion of the 
day and to stitch new cloth to it. The feeling which in 
the Marcionite affected to break off all continuity with the 
past, as well as that which in the Ebionite fanatically re- 
sisted innovation, were only extreme and partial exhibi- 
tions of usually concurrent influences. Even St. Paul, the 
first assertor of free originality, appeals to tradition 1 and 
1 1 Cor. xl 23 ; xv. 3, 



CAUSES OF PSEUDONYMOUS WRITING. 



337 



to the general authority of ancient precedent ; endeavour- 
ing by strained interpretation to force the new idea into 
the old framework, being convinced, that as the gospel 
could not be trusted if at variance with the Old Testa- 
ment, so the latter could not be true if it did not contain 
in germ the revelations of the gospel. In this way an 
ideal meaning is sometimes not merely added, but substi- 
tuted for the literal; the interests of the old Israelitish 
oxen are summarily displaced in favour of the actual 
claims of the Christian minister ; l the passing of the Red 
Sea becomes a "baptism unto Moses ;" 2 the miraculous 
water and manna, spiritual food and drink ; the rock 
source of the water, Christ ; 3 in short, the real purpose of 
Scripture is not that for which it was ostensibly written, 
but our views and objects "upon whom the ends of the 
world are come." 4 According to the Jewish Rabbis, the 
whole scope of prophecy had relation to the times of Mes- 
siah ; 5 and hence the literal significancy of the words was 
naturally displaced by the all-important intent. " Look 
well to yourselves," says the Epistle of Barnabas (iv. and 
viii.), " and be not like those who say that their covenant 
is ours also. Nay, but it is ours only : these things are to 
us evident, although to the Jews obscure." The Epistle 
is throughout a challenge to adopt the true " gnosis ;" to 
recognise the essentially Christian meaning of Jewish 
types; as if this meaning, long misunderstood, was the 
only living verity — the thing really intended from the 
first. And it is curious to observe the self-approbation 
and complacency with which the writer contemplates 
the childish devices of his own quibbling ingenuity. 
" Blessed be God," he exclaims (ch. vi. and ix.) after 

1 1 Cor. ix. 9. 2 i Cor x 2 . 

3 1 Cor. x. 4 ; comp. Gal. iv. 25. See also Gfrorer's TTrchristenthum, ii. 
420 ; and his Philo, vol. i., pp. 206, 220, 228. 
* 1 Cor. ix. 10, x. 11. 

5 " nines prophetse sine exceptione non nisi de diebns Messiae prophet- 
.,!«+" nfrnror TWhn'sf u #j 198 ; comp. Acts iii. 24. 

22 



338 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

a monstrously fanciful combination, " Blessed be God 
who has given us wisdom to understand bis secrets ; 
God knows I never taught to any one a more certain 
truth; I trust that ye are worthy of it." 1 This certainty 
was itself considered a precious gift of the Holy Spirit, 
without whose assistance the interpretation of the law was 
deemed impossible ; 2 " It is the Spirit that beareth wit- 
ness/' says the 1st Epistle of John (v. 6, and ii. 27) 
"because the Spirit is truth;" everyone possessing this 
unction had the comforting assurance of his own self- 
approval, and might refer all veracity to the measure of 
himself (iv. 6). In this way the Old Testament was 
cited arbitrarily, and the Septuagint gradually assumed a 
specifically Christian colouring. 3 In the Epistle to the 
Hebrews the Old Testament is made to afford an unim- 
peachable historical attestation of the superior efficacy and 
dignity of the Christian high priesthood and of the neces- 
sity of faith, by means of an allegorical rendering of the 
accounts of Melchisedek and Enoch ; although in the 
former case the circumstances on which the relative supe- 
riority is founded, e.g. the having no father or mother, are 
suggested by the intended inference, while the other 
equally assumes the matter to be proved, presuming the 
faith from the divine favour instead of deducing the favour 
from the faith. Pseudo-Ignatius 4 cuts short the scruple 
expressed by the current sajdng, " eav pr) ev toi$ apyaiois 
evpco, ev rep evayye\ia> ov nruiTevu)" with the reply, the new 
system is contained in the old ; superseding all farther 
argument or objection by declaring that " Christ's cross, 
death, and resurrection, are my antiquity;" and then pro- 

1 Barnabas not only interpolates, but invents facts and prophecies ; e.g. the 
fact that Jesus chose for his apostles the very worst of sinners (ch. v.) ; the 
prophecy (ch. xii.) " when the fallen tree shall rise, and bloody stains shall 
mark its sides." 

2 Philo, " Quod omnis probus liber," M. 2, p. 458. 

3 See Hilgenfeld in the Tub. Journal, vol. ix., p. 577. 

4 Philad. ch. viii. 



CAUSES OF PSEUDONYMOUS WRITING. 339 

ceeding to engraft by means of the Logos theory advanced 
doctrinal ideas upon the synoptical gospels, 1 ideas originally 
suggested by his own mind, and again reflected back to 
his mind with additional certainty from the deliberately 
interpolated record. Justin, Tertullian, Lactantius, take 
equal or even greater liberties, the former making the 
whole Jewish history a pantomimic anticipation of Christ, 
and even ascribing to Jewish fraud the omission of pas- 
sages which his own over-zealous faith had gratuitously 
adapted or inserted. 2 He designates the Jewish inter- 
preters as "fools" (avorjTOi) for not seeing the Christian 
drift of the prophecies ; 3 and goes on to construct out of 
the 24th Psalm a melo-drama of his own invention des- 
cribing the conduct of the bewildered angels on Christ's 
lowly appearance at the gates of heaven. It was this 
tendency to supersede the literal sense by the newly dis- 
covered purpose, to merge the type in its fulfilment, which 
led the Western church to drop with the name of Judaism 
all its external vestiges, such as the Passover, which 
continued to linger on in Eastern usage ; and hence Apol- 
linaris and Hippolytus reproach their Judaising opponents 
for perversity and obstinacy arising from their incapacity 
to see the real bearings of the subject. 4 With the defini- 
tive constitution of the church and the establishment of a 
canon, the practice of pseudonymous writing ceased with 
its cause ; the obvious cause being the absence during the 
previous period of any available means of triumphantly 
asserting a plausible doctrine, unless by reverting in some 
form, whether of tradition, citation, or putative authorship, 
to the firm ground of apostolic teaching. And when we 
consider the anxiety to keep open the living resources of 
tradition manifested in the memorable fragment of Papias 

1 See Ephes. ch. xvii. 

2 Tryplio, ch. 71, 72, 73, 120. Comp. Psalm xcvi. 10. Tertullian adv. 
Judse. ch. 10. 

3 Tryplio, ch. 36. 

4 Baur, Das Christenthum. 1, 152, 153. 



340 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

in Eusebius, 1 the facility of confounding the " avrrj rj 
aX^Qeia" there alluded to with the reported sentiments of 
Jesus or the apostles, — the inducement held out by un- 
satisfied curiosity, and controversial polemics to fill up the 
scanty outlines of what, in the absence of a fixed canon, 
seemed an ever unexhausted field of research, — an infinite 
vacuity, 2 to be supplied out of the requirements and 
spiritual ingenuity of the present, it will excite no surprise 
to find the acts and teachings of Jesus, and still more the 
list of apostolic writings, continually augmented by the 
gratuitous interpolation of what was deemed by later belief 
to be their necessary and salutary consequences. 

But certainly the most striking example of the pro- 
cess of engrafting new views and discoveries on an old 
stock of revelation, and also of calm internal assurance 
of spiritual qualification for accomplishing the task, is the 
fourth gospel. Nowhere is the semblance of fidelity to the 
past so strongly contrasted with real originality and 
novelty. Confronted, like others, — as Papias, Irenseus, 
the author of Luke, etc. — with a vast multitude of incon- 
gruous writings and traditions, 3 the writer seems to have 
felt convinced that the true gospel, though contained in 
these writings, was not to be identified with the literal 
terms of their expression ; 4 on the other hand, he felt 
authorised through possession of that spirit which was to 
"teach all things/' and to "bring all things to remem- 

1 H. E. 3, 39. In this curious passage we have an illustration of the extreme 
avidity prevalent among the early Christians for precise information in regard 
to supervenient doubts and difficulties ; e.g. the second coming, the millennium, 
the state of the dead, etc., etc. (see Irente. 1, 10) ; then of the overhasty, 
overconfident replies made to satisfy the credulous on these subjects by the 
"TroAAa \eyoyres" contemned by the superior judgment and discrimination of 
the bishop, who however betrays by his use of the word " axpeXeiaBcu" that he 
was biassed in his views of " truth" by what he thought most suited to edify, 
and that he valued the " living voice" above the dead letter of a book chiefly 
because it could respond indefinitely to the curiosity of a questioner. 

2 Comp. John xxi. 25, and Matt. iv. 23. Origen against Celsus. 6, 6, p. 279. 

3 A/xvdriTou ir\r)6os airoKpv(pwv kcu voQav •ypa^xav^ — Irense. i. 20, 1. 

4 Compare ch. ii. 22 ; xvi. 25. 



CAUSES OF PSEUDONYMOUS WRITING. 341 

brance," 1 to undertake the task of unfolding the truth 
more accurately, and assuming ancient data as a basis, 2 to 
treat his own speculative views as the unerring key to 
their obscure and figurative import. 3 In this way he wrote 
what has been termed a "pneumatic gospel," 4 carrying 
into his revised narrative all the intensity of the newly 
acquired feeling of the perfection and independence of 
Christianity, and treating the mass of ancient writings and 
traditions as a "dead body" from which the pure essence 
of "the word" together with "the signs" of its historical 
self-manifestation were still to be extracted. The plan of 
the work is sufficiently explained by itself, as well as its 
relation to the other New Testament writings. The basis 
of the writer's confidence is his assured possession of that 
spirit which is truth itself (xv. 26 ; xvi. 13), and which is 
presumed to communicate directly to man what it receives 
from Christ (xvi. 14). It seems at first strange that in 
adapting the prior materials for his work of art the evan- 
gelist should not have been startled by the obvious dis- 
crepancy of what he found and what he wrote ; — that he 
should not have shrunk from the presumptuous thought 
of having discovered for the first time the true view of 
Christ's person and life. But his own words explain how 
— not half- consciously or instinctively, but with deliberate 
premeditation, he considered himself, whether an apostle 
or not, as empowered and entitled to take this freedom in 
virtue of the spirit continuously spread abroad in Christen- 

1 Ch. xiv. 26; xv. 26; xvi. 13, 

2 As, for instance, in the curious application of Matthew xiii. 57, Luke iv. 
24, in ch. iv. 44 ; and the expansion of Luke xvi. 31 into a dramatic act; xi. 
43 practically exemplifying the fact that the "word" is avaaraais and £a>7j. 

3 Compare xvi. 25. 

4 Clem. Alex, in Euseb. H. E. vi. 14: "Tov \iaawt\v cvinSovTa on to 
ffca/iaTtKa ei/ rots evayyeXiois SeS^AwTat, — irvev/xaTL Oeocpop-qQevra iruevfiariKoy 
iroLTja-ai evayyeAiov." This by no means implies that the evangelist was an 
impostor ; he does no more than he conceived himself rightfully entitled to do ; 
no more in fact (see Baur's reply to Hase, p. 42) than the apocalyptic writer ; 
both write ideally — one in the form of visionary anticipation, the other in a 
series of quasi-historical pictures. 



342 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

dom ; and that as St. Paul maintained his claim to have 
seen Christ, so every partaker of Christ's "fullness" might 
be said to have been a witness of his "glory." Just as the 
writer of Ephesians (ii. 17 ; iii. 5) without any conscious- 
ness of self-contradiction, attributes to Jesus himself the 
communication of the gospel to the heathen which he 
immediately afterwards mentions as a truth first revealed 
to the apostles and prophets by the Spirit ; or as in the 
first epistle containing so many analogies with the gospel, 
it is suggested that the testimony of the Spirit as to the 
human personality of Jesus 1 was quite as important, or 
rather much more so, than any other evidence, so we are 
told in the gospel that the Spirit would bear future witness 
of Christ, and would glorify Him (xv. 26 ; xvi. 14) ; that 
it would bring all his sayings to remembrance (xii. 16 ; 
xiv. 26) ; and in the time to come communicate a far 
clearer revelation than before of the objective relation of 
the Father to the Son and to man. In these announce- 
ments we have a prophetically expressed delineation of 
the writer's own impressions and actual faith ; nor could 
he entertain any misgiving as to his possession of the 
privilege which he extols ; for the internal witness was to 
be the infallible property of all who in the distracting 
diversities of controversy and party clung to the peace and 
simple unity of Christ (xvii. 11, 21, 23), who loved him 
and kept his commandments (xiv. 21, 23). It had been 
elsewhere laid down that "evangelists," "pastors," and 
"teachers," as well as "prophets and apostles," are all 
missionaries of " one spirit," 2 so that all have a common 
object, namely, " the perfecting the work of the ministry 
and edifying the body of Christ, in order that all may 
come in unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, 
unto perfection, and be no more, as children, tossed to 
and fro by every wind of doctrine." 3 Such is the aim 

1 Expressed by the word aifia. See ch. v. 6. Comp. ii. 27. 

2 1 Cor. xii. 3, 4, 11, 28. 3 Ephes. iy. 11-14. 



THE REPLIES. 



343 



of the evangelist. Without pretending to be himself the 
apostle whose " witness" or authority he represents, but 
only one of the many (" iravTes," i. 16, " we/' as dis- 
tinguished from the apostles— xx. 30 ; xxi. 24) partakers 
of the one spirit, he comes forward anonymously, in full 
reliance on the intrinsic credibility of the cause he pleads ; 
and while indirectly admitting his glorifying narrative to 
be the result of later thought — expressed in the future 
"Sofao-et" (xvi. 14) — intimates by the word " remem- 
brance " his firm belief in the exact correspondence of this 
later thought with the real history of Jesus. 

The Replies.— EwalcVs "Life of Christ." 

An account of the Tubingen School should be followed 
by a notice of its reception, and of the criticisms passed 
upon the critics. But this would entail the discussion of 
minutiae un suited to a rapid sketch, as well as a wearisome 
and unprofitable enumeration of those evasive shifts and 
doublings with which we have already had occasion to 
become familiar. Among the number of would-be critics 
there are but few possessing all the necessary qualifications 
in combination, and whose knowledge and impartiality can 
be thoroughly trusted. Baur's ordinary antagonists may 
be placed under three heads : whiners, mystifiers, and 
arguers. Hase sentimentalises ; Ewald wraps his virtue in 
an obscurity of inflated verbiage ; Hilgenfeld, though 
claiming an independent position, is really the most active 
present representative of the School, pleading only for a 
few more or less important modifications ; Yolkmar, after 
rectifying the hypothetical relation of Marcion's gospel to 
Luke's, seems to have embarked on a precarious voyage of 
Conjecture ; Bleek takes the orthodox side upon certain 
disputable points, and is generally a fair opponent. Yet 
surely it is no fair statement of the subject when placing 
himself at the point of view of the mere Biblicist, he 



344 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

asserts 1 that Baur's criticism is merely negative and de- 
structive ; that, after pleading for the unhistorical charac- 
ter of the fourth gospel on the ground of the reliability of 
the others, he immediately proceeds to reduce the latter to 
the same low level of uncertainty ; as if, forsooth, there 
were no certainty but pragmatical certainty ; as if Baur, 
When resigning the literal veracity of all the gospels, had 
not at the same time admitted a higher degree of historical 
fidelity in the synoptics. — Generally speaking, the Tubin- 
gen criticism has stood its ground, and may be said to be 
alive and thriving, although its ill wishers make a pretence 
of celebrating its obsequies, and erecting a cenotaph to its 
memoiw. The method, initiated by Baur, of interpreting 
the New Testament writings as records of the development 
of early Christian opinion, is proved, says Dr. Hilgenfeld, 2 
to be the only correct one. The antagonism between a 
liberal and an anti-liberal party, and the various attempts 
to mediate and build up catholic unity out of elements of 
conflict, supply the true hypothetical key to the historical 
comprehension of the New Testament ; in particular the 
objection to the fourth gospel derived from its relation to 
the Passover controversy of the second century, has been 
successfully maintained. 3 Of course, the main aim of apo- 
logists has been to reinstate the tottering authority of this 
gospel. Bleek's argument is perhaps the most noticeable 
effort of the kind. 4 He asserts the superior credibility of 
the gospel in its chief points of variance, in regard, for 
instance, to the early journeys to Jerusalem, and the day 
of the crucifixion. In regard to the former he urges — 1st, 
That it is in itself unlikely that Jesus should not have 
gone to Jerusalem before the last Passover ; 2ndly, That 
the words of Matt, xxiii. 37, and Luke xiii. 34, must be 
understood in their literal sense as implying earlier jour- 

1 Synoptische Erklarung, p. 15. 

2 Der Kanon, p. 180. 3 Jbid., p. 170. 
p. 178 seq. 



THE REPLIES. 



345 



neys; 1 3rdly, That since Joseph, of Arimathea must be 
presumed to have been resident at Jerusalem, as having a 
grave there, his relation to Jesus as a disciple 3 confirms 
the idea of earlier visits ; 4thly, That the connection of 
Jesus with Martha and Mary, alluded to in Luke x. 38, as 
well as in John, suggests the same inference ; othly, That 
an anonymous writer in the second century would have 
destroyed his own credit had he so far varied from the 
account of the synoptics without good historical reasons, etc. 
Most writers taking this side of the question admit the 
inconsistencies of the gospels, ascribing them either to 
better information or interpolation on the part of the 
fourth. Professor Ewald alone, to whom the celebrity of 
any opinion not emanating from himself is sufficient reason 
for condemning and contradicting it, renews the desperate 
enterprise of attempting to fuse all four accounts harmo- 
niously together. In this way the quantum of ostensibly 
historical matter is certainly increased, but with a woeful 
loss of quality and coherency ; instead of harmony, we get 

1 This, the most important of the suggested difficulties, is ably met by 
Strauss in a notice in the first number of the Zeitschrift fur "Wiss. Tkeologie 
for the present year (1863), p. 84. It naturally seemed strange that Christ 
should speak of repeated attempts to win over the inhabitants of Jerusalem 
before he had been there at all, as represented in Luke, or, as stated in Mat- 
thew, very shortly after his first arrival ; so that the exclamation, as by them 
reported, seemed like an involuntary testimony of the synoptics to the supe- 
rior accuracy of the fourth gospel. Baur, impressed with a conviction of the 
unhistorical character of the latter on general grounds, hastily passed over 
this obstacle with the remark that the words of Christ might be considered as 
referring to all the inhabitants of the country, including Galilee, of which 
Jerusalem was the metropolis ; suggesting, however, as an alternative explana- 
tion, that Jesus might be here supposed to speak as a prophet in God's name, 
so that the word "often" would allude to the whole series of prophetic remon- 
strances made from the earliest times so repeatedly and so vainly. Strauss 
goes on to shew that this last is the only meaning allowed by the context in 
Matthew (xxiii. 34) ; that the words of the exclamation are in fact cited from 
a Christian document written soon after the destruction of Jerusalem, and 
placed in the mouth of Jesus without any minute attention to circumstantial 
accuracy. Luke, indeed, alters the collocation (comp. iv. 49, xiii. 34) ; but 
this is a common practice with him, and is now generally admitted to be 
an arbitrary disposition of his own ; in the present case of addressing Jeru- 
salem from a distance, betraying itself as an unnatural dislocation of the 
original passage suggested by the sequence of the words (see Luke xiii. 33, 34). 

z Matt, xxvii. 57 ; Luke xxiii. 50. 



346 TUBINGEN KESULTS. 

only the primaeval chaos of undiscriminating belief. The 
effort to harmonise makes disharmony more evident, when 
narratives in themselves sufficiently intelligible are made 
a hopeless jumble by incongruous intermixture. 1 Ewald 
reconciles the Johannean prologue with the synoptical 
legends of the infancy by slurring over both ; hastily 
escaping from the one as a correct general allusion to the 
true pre-existence of the Messiah, and treating the other 
as mythus, but mythus founded upon facts. The entire 
significancy of the career of Jesus is referred to his 
encounter with the Baptist ; the omission of the act of 
baptism by the fourth evangelist being treated as casual 
and unimportant. Through the mingling of the narra- 
tives the acts and proceedings of Jesus become inconsistent 
and inexplicable ; he is continually amending and re- 
capitulating, — breaking off and beginning again without 
apparent plan or object. The insertion of the temptation 
between John iv. and v. — the interval in which, accord- 
ing to Ewald's collocation of the circumstances, John is 
cast into prison — is recommended by a pun, the whole of 
the previous career of Jesus being said to be a mere trial 
or experiment (" versuch ") ; and " versuch" is closely 
allied to " versuchung" (temptation). "The Baptist's 
imprisonment/ ' says Ewald, 2 " exercised a powerful re- 
actionary influence over the scarcely commencing* work of 
Jesus, which was in fact only a continuation of that of his 
precursor ; both agencies were simultaneously menaced. 
So that if Jesus intended his own work to proceed success- 
fully, it became necessary that he should address himself 
to it with renewed vigour, and, as it were, begin it over 
again. Under the increased weight of obligation now 

1 As where, for instance, the Baptist's message of enquiry ahout Jesus is to 
be reconciled with his own previous unequivocal declaration in the fourth 
gospel (ch. i. 31, 34). 

2 Geschichte Christus, p. 244, seq. 

3 Although, according to the fourth gospel, Jesus had already fully mani- 
fested forth his glory in the Jewish metropolis as " Son of God and King of 
Israel ! " 



THE REPLIES. 



347 



pressing on himself alone, he had to exercise a wisdom and 
foresight greater than before. All his previous under- 
takings now appeared as a mere prelude or foretaste, and 
would seem still more relatively insignificant in the retro- 
spect when eclipsed by the comparative importance of his 
subsequent greater efforts. Hence it is that the recollec- 
tion of them, if not effaced, is considerably weakened and 
obscured in the ordinary synoptical accounts, which make 
the imprisonment of the Baptist the starting point of a 
really Messianic agency ; and the previous proceedings in 
Jerusalem being only a trial or ' Versuch/ a preparatory 
experimental encounter with danger and difficulty, tradi- 
tion created out of it the incident of the ' Yersuchung' or 
temptation !" " We must esteem it," continues Ewald, "a 
signal manifestation of Providential goodness, that, pre- 
vious to the full revelation of redeeming power, Jesus 
found a short interval in which to try and prove himself, 
in order to learn and for ever to dismiss the sources of 
possible error and failure incidental to his great work." 

And when, after other similarly lame efforts to conceal 
the inherent incongruity, the attempted connection breaks 
down, and ignominious exposure becomes imminent, Ewald 
hurries to the rescue with a pathetic appeal to the reader's 
feelings, covering his retreat with inflated rhetoric, and 
striving to create an artificial exaltation by the free use of 
superlatives. In oracularly mysterious language he tries 
to establish a priori the divine nature of Christ. " The 
purely spiritual," he says, "is above the sphere of history; 
when assuming a human form, it of course becomes subject 
to human weaknesses and limitations ; yet still, in spite of 
all, the individual soul is able not only to recognise the 
divinity in thought and action, but also to appropriate and 
experience its reactive effects." And then the author leaves 
us to an option or open dilemma, in which the rejected 
alternative is in reality far more plausible and credible 
than the one recommended. " Either," he proceeds to say, 



348 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

" this highest of all manifestations was never fulfilled at 
all in the world's history, or else it was fulfilled in one 
perfectly capable of fulfilling it; and when it became 
actually fulfilled in one individual, then the one true and 
perfect religion was historically realised." To make this 
obscure matter clearer in regard to Christ's person, Ewald 
refers to the general categories of time and space. Under 
the former aspect, Christ's person was an immediate pre- 
sent including all futurity ; under the latter, an infinite 
contraction, capable, however, of indefinite expansion. 
Hence we are told that the kingdom of heaven is both 
present and future ; because true religion must always be 
represented by a human life so swayed and controlled by 
God that human acquiescence and obedience are absolute 
and complete. This may happen in the smallest space and 
at any time ; nay, adds Ewald, it must be effectuated in the 
smallest space, so as to become a source of ulterior develop- 
ment ; for this purpose a single human soul in a weak 
human body afforded sufficient room : " and lo ! " he con- 
tinues, " there appeared in open day before the eyes of men 
its fully realised impersonation in Him whose whole life was 
a continuous presentation of it in all imaginable fullness of 
power and perfection ! " But why this theatrical rigma- 
role of ostensibly deductive proof, when the real problem 
is to analyse the historical credibility of the written narra- 
tive — to adjust the literary evidence in such a manner as 
to elicit from its intricate and complicated details a con- 
sistent and intelligible whole ? This Ewald finds it easier 
to assume than to achieve, and adroitly conceals the critical 
difficulty amid the echoes of rhetorical flourish. The real 
gist of the replies of theologians to what Dr. Schwartz calls 
an "undoubted advance in the scientific interpretation of 
the Bible," 1 is an emphatic dogmatical "No," expressed 

1 Geschichte der Neuesten Theologie, pp. 191, 194, 205. "We find here, 
and here almost alone (namely, in the Tubingen School), a real advance of 
theological science, a hopeful and thoroughgoing series of labours." 



THE REPLIES. 349 

with little difference of meaning in many varieties of form 
and intonation. " Terra in aeternum stat, quia terra in ceter- 
num stabit," was an argument which Galileo with all his 
scientific knowledge could never have refuted. In studied 
opposition to the " mythical " and " tendency " theories 
of Strauss and Baur, the latter of whom, although once a 
colleague of his own, he pursued even in his grave with the 
most unseemly vituperation, 1 Ewald constructs a very com- 
plicated hypothesis as to the external literary origin of 
the gospels, arbitrarily collected from traditional data and 
modern conjecture. We thus get nine or ten distinguish- 
ably successive phases in the history of evangelical com- 
position down to the fourth gospel ; and it is characteristic 
of Ewaldian criticism not only to deal unfairly with rival 
theories, but to treat whatever it has once sanctioned and 
adopted as irrefragable and irrevocable. 2 And yet, in spite 
of his repugnance to the mythical, he is, after all, obliged 
to have recourse to it himself. In describing Jesus as 
essentially the " Messianic King," whose mission was not 
so much to teach and preach as to act and to command, 3 
he is necessarily confronted by the miracles. A large portion 
of these, forming the " daily work" of Jesus, such as the 
constantly recurring healings of the sick, and particularly 
of daemoniacs, are disposed of as extraordinary yet natural 
effects produced by the consummate skill of superior insight ; 4 

1 See an article by Zeller in the fourth volume of the Zeitschrift fur Wiss. 
Theologie, p. 319. 

2 Without this hint, Ewald's references to himself — as, for instance that to 
the Book of Higher History in his Life of Christ, pp. xvii., 246, etc. — would 
he scarcely intelligible. In reading his turgid sentences, one cannot help feel- 
ing how pious pretence may after all be only a -veil for the coldest and hardest 
scepticism. 

3 An idea strangely inconsistent with Ewald's favourite theory of the higher 
historical accuracy of the fourth gospel— a gospel assigning so much space and 
importance to the word and teaching of Christ, and omitting the daemoniacs 
altogether. Indeed, it may well be questioned whether the real dignity of the 
character of Jesus is better expressed in his cures of sick people than in his 
moral doctrines, and the "gospel preached to the poor." "Plus est quod 
vitia sanavit animarum, quam quod sanayit languores corporum.-" 

4 Pages 191, 194, sq. 



350 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

but then there are some works, such as walking on the 
sea, calming the storm, curing at a distance, and raising 
the dead, which the author is compelled to acknowledge as 
exceptional displays of concentrated energy — in short, as 
miraculous. 1 He proceeds to adapt this difficult article of 
faith to the rational understanding by plausibly and care- 
fully describing the psychological conditions through which 
it was brought about ; first exalting as much as possible 
the mysterious efficacy of Christ's spiritual nature, and 
then enlarging on the high wrought expectations and 
earnest devotion of his followers, who in exceptional mo- 
ments of enthusiasm saw the absolute and literal realisa- 
tion of all they imagined and anticipated. 2 But the two 
factors are really inseparable ; and it is precisely from a 
conjunction of subjective feeling with objective circum- 
stance that my thus is naturally generated. " My thus in 
the gospels," says Strauss, 3 " has two simultaneous sources ; 
one the Messianic ideas and expectations ; the other, the 
particular impression left by the personal character, actions, 
and fate of Jesus." So here a real basis of fact is assumed 
to be transfigured by the feelings of the beholders ; an im- 
pressive personality on one hand and excited imaginations 
on the other produce the paradoxical result. But the 
purpose of the advocate, is best served by dwelling, not 
on the combined result, but on the two elementary sources 
of the psychological product, the subjective and the 
objective, separately ; making each a distinct matter 
of wordy amplification, until at length, without any 
abrupt shock or offensive declaration, the hiatus between 
fact and belief seems gently to close, like the far-seen 
Symplegades, by means of perspective effect and an un- 
limited expansion of the termini. To harp on the sub- 

1 Page 196, sq. Ewald designates these as "the more lustrous sparks and 
vivid lightning flashes of action, raising the already exalted spiritual agency 
to a still loftier pitch of power !" 

2 Page 197. 

3 Introd. to Lehen Jesu, sec. 15. 



THE REPLIES. 351 

jective or ideal element of a given narrative is of course 
to make its objective fidelity and accuracy more or less 
problematical and suspicious. Yet Ewald, while verbally 
insisting on the historical reliability of the miracles, un- 
hesitatingly proceeds to deal with them on the footing of 
figurative symbols and allegories. In regard, for instance, 
to the miracle of Cana, he says, we should miserably mis- 
interpret the noble wine now and always flowing down 
into our souls, were we to institute a puerile enquiry how 
water could suddenly become wine, as if even now it were 
not in the best sense so converted wherever the spirit of 
Christ is duly felt, 1 etc., etc. Similarly the feeding the 
five thousand is supposed to exemplify the beautiful 
serenity of faith which deepens in its trust with the 
urgency and severity of the trial ; the transfiguration, too, 
shews how a true faith already clearly discerns the vic- 
torious form of life and glory under the lineaments of 
suffering obscurity, etc., etc. But then, after having 
treated the meaning of the miracle as exhausted in its 
spiritual significancy, Ewald still retains its literal truth 
as if unaffected by his previous treatment ; although it is 
plain, especially in the explanation given of the raising of 
Lazarus and of the resurrection, 2 that the spiritual idea 
alone is really considered tenable by the writer, who in 
reality shares in spite of himself the views of those whom 
he angrily denounces as blunderers and fools. 3 In short 
all the resources of mythical interpretation are resorted to 

1 See p. 224. 

2 In a later work of Ewald, the " History of the Apostolic Age," the resur- 
rection is similarly allegorised, as meaning the renewed spiritual life of Christ 
in the Christian mind, so that we entirely lose sight of the historical narrative 
in the assumed ideal significancy. 

3 Thus Ewald remarks against Strauss that the idea of the New Testament 
narratives being suggested by Old Testament types is a mere vague unfounded 
hypothesis; but he immediately adds, " certainly the facts were expected to 
occur according to the old types, and the narrative shaped itself readily into a 
suitable form" (see note to p. 197). A singular way this of refuting an 
opponent ! But it is a common device ; denounce your adversary in un- 
measured terms for what he says, and then in slightly varying language 
quietly adopt his suggestions. 



352 TUBINGEN RESULTS. 

without any open acknowledgment or direct use of an 
obnoxious expression ; and so we get back to the old 
established arts of modern supernaturalism, consisting in 
circumlocutory phrases presented under every form of 
ambiguity and sanctimonious grimace. These unfailing 
resources of theological subtlety may remind us of the 
judicious principle of domestic management advocated by 
Caleb Balderstone, " a good excuse is better than the 
things themselves ; for these maun be consumed with 
time ; whereas a good come-off carefully and discreetly 
used may serve a gentleman and his family heaven knows 
how long." 



APPENDIX. 



A.— (Page 10.) 

Here the writer must leave to abler hands the further prosecu- 
tion of a subject of which the above is but a scanty outline. 
Yet the confession of incompleteness implies no absolute self- 
condemnation. It is the inevitable condition of all human effort 
and pursuit to be elementary and provisional. This fact is, ( 
however, often very unjustly made a reason for disparaging all \ 
endeavour and pursuit of knowledge; and enquiry is met by 
the ignorant objection that it leads to no fixed or final result. 
Truth being infinite, philosophy must always remain an open 
question ; yet the real fallacy is not in research, but in the false 
security of those who prematurely fancy their object won and ^ 
their education finished. Churchmen monopolise the privilege 
of dogmatising ; philosophy must be content to be ever learning 
without ever pretending to have reached its final goal. The two 
claims are indeed incompatible and hostile; and hence philoso- 
phical theologians — as for instance, E-othe 1 — are calmly antici- 
pating the impending downfall of churches, thinking it their 
inevitable tendency to be absorbed in civil governments so soon 
as the latter shall become sufficiently enlightened and morally 
competent to supersede them. 

Governments ought doubtless to encourage and guide as well 
as coerce and punish ; and it is important that State authority 
should in some way throw its influence into the scale of the 
spiritual interests and dignity of man. But then it is pre- 
posterous to perpetuate in the name of improvement an expedient 
especially adapted to promote mental suffocation and arrest; to 
tantalise us with stones in the name of bread, and in lieu of an 
educational establishment to maintain the absolute pretensions 
and costume of a mediaeval church. 

1 See Dr. Schwartz, History of Recent Theology, p. 286. 

23 



354 APPENDIX. 

It was said by the late Br. Arnold that government is not a 
police, a faction, or an army, but a moral institution. Govern- 
ment, he explains, should, as representing the State, desire those 
ends and contrive those means which the personified State ought 
to desire and contrive ; and the true end of a state is only the 
truest and highest object of the individuals composing it. The 
State, therefore, he adds, is the perfect Church, and should do 
the work of the Church. Arnold rests this lofty vocation of the 
State, as compared with other associations, on the footing of its 
being the sovereign society ; an immoral sovereignty being prac- 
tically a despotism of evil. 

But Dr. Arnold fails to shew how his moral State theory is to 
be realised. When he says that the State may as well adopt the 
"law of the New Testament" or the "law of Christ's church" 
for its rule of procedure as the code of Justinian, — he evidently 
speaks at random. Tor the law of the New Testament is vague, 
contradictory, and incomplete, ; l it is certainly no such rule as 
municipal law could properly undertake to enforce. The Eras- 
tian identification of Church and State in this sense threatens a 
tyrannic indifferentism as noxious in one way as theocratic 
intolerance in another ; or it may very possibly merge in such 
intolerance ; for Dr. Arnold, assuming the evidences of what he 
vaguely terms "the Christian religion" to be "unanswerable," 
treats it as a mere question of time when the rejection of Chris- 
tianity shall be properly dealt with as a moral offence. 

Immoral power is of course a fearful thing. But the only 
known way of making governments moral is the making them 
responsible ; and this responsibility is effectually secured only 
when enforced by a moral and enlightened state of opinion. 
Modern politicians often confound "free" government with a 
system of mechanical equipoise and countercheck, from which 
the interference of arbitrary discretion is as much as possible 
removed. 2 But true freedom is not mechanical ; its seat is the 
human mind alone. No society subsists on a mere balance and 
artificial counteraction of automatic forces. " Government," 
says Mr. Mill, 3 is a machinery which will no more act for itself 

i Mill on Liberty, pp, 88, 90, etc. 

2 Sir James Mackintosh on the Study of the Law of Nature, p. 63. 

■* On Eepresentative Government, p. 32. 



APPENDIX. 355 

than a bridle will check a horse without a rider." " The quality 
of a government essentially depends on the qualities of the 
hnman beings composing the society ; and, this being so, the 
most important point of excellence which any government can 
possess is a direct tendency to promote the moral qualities — the 
virtue and intelligence of the people." 

But governments are far from having attained the moral ex- 
cellence qualifying them to dispense or effectually to superintend 
it. They therefore employ the rough and ready expedient of an 
alliance with the church to palliate or conceal a deficiency which 
they are unable to supply ; and hence a continuance of the un- 
wholesome, unnatural separation between mental and material 
interests, dating from the old times of nominalistic medieevalism. 
Several reasons may be cited to account for the remarkable 
estrangement between the moral and the material life of modern 
societies ; but perhaps the chief cause of the phenomenon is the 
system making religion the separate business of a profession, a 
thing to be officially administered as a commodity by a priestly 
class on mediaeval principles ; by virtue of which truth becomes 
very generally confounded with mechanical belief, and virtue with 
external profession or function, according to the dictum of Bellar- 
mine, "ut aliquis dici possit pars verse ecclesiae, non putamus 
requiri ab eo ullam internam virtutem, sed tantum externam pro- 
fessionem." Governments being, under present circumstances, 
unfit to assume moral authority themselves, adopt in lieu of it a 
transmitted vicarious machinery tending to make the incom- 
petency perpetual : to increase the evil while indefinitely post- 
poning the remedy. For what are "churches" but political 
engines wielding enormous wealth and social influence to promote 
the secular ends of governments, leaving religion to sink into a 
hollow routine, a solemn farce, more or less decorously played off 
in the interests of the influential classes. " The natural ten- 
dency of the philosophy of the eighteenth century," says Mr. 
Mill, 1 "was to extinguish institutions which had ceased to accord 
with any honest theory. In England it would have done the 
same had it been strong enough; but as this was not the case, 
an adjustment was made between the rival powers. What 

1 Review of Coleridge, p. 431. 



356 APPENDIX. 

neither party cared for, the ends of existing institutions, the work 
that was to be done by teachers and governors, was flung over- 
board. The wages of that work the teachers and governors did 
care about ; and those wages were secured to them. The exist- 
ing institutions in church and state were to be preserved in- 
violate, in outward semblance at least, but were required to be 
practically as much a nullity as possible. The church continued 
to ' rear her mitred front in court and palaces,' but not as in the 
days of Hildebrand or Becket, as the champion of arts against 
arms, of spiritual principles against the domination of animal 
force ; nor even as in the days of Latimer and John Knox, as a 
body divinely commissioned to train the nation in a knowledge 
of God and obedience to His laws, whatever became of princi- 
palities and powers, and whether this end might better be com- 
passed by their assistance, or by trampling them under foot. 
No ; but the people of England liked old things, and nobody 
knew how the place might be filled which the doing away with 
so conspicuous an institution might leave vacant ; and quieta ne 
movere was the favourite doctrine of those times : therefore, on 
condition of not making too much noise about religion, or taking 
it too much in earnest, the church was supported, even by philo- 
sophers, as a 'bulwark against fanaticism,' a sedative to the 
religious spirit, to prevent it from disturbing the harmony of 
society or the tranquillity of states. The clergy thought they 
had a good bargain on those terms, and kept its conditions very 
faithfully." 

And so the empire of routine went on ; church virtue con- 
tinued to usurp the mask of real virtue ; church truth to travesty 
and to browbeat enquiring aspiration ; education to share the 
degradation of reason considered as the " ancilla theologise." 
For there are two kinds of education; Jesuitical indoctrination, 
the " giving of knowledge," or imparting cut and dried results; 
and the true education which consists in bringing a human soul 
into a really intelligent intercourse with the order of the uni- 
verse. To enforce true education is, according to Mr. Mill, 1 the 
duty of the state; and it is a mistaken notion about liberty 
which raises an obstacle to its fulfilling this duty. Some deny 

1 On Liberty, p. 188, sq. 



APPENDIX. 357 

the obligation, others the usefulness of performing it ; the Times, 
in particular, decrying education by pointing to its abuses and 
ridiculing its actual results. 1 It is urged that " the rural popu- 
lation are helpless under circumstances of difficulty, incapable 
of adapting themselves to change, and so ignorant, that no 
reasonable being would, for pity's sake, ask them a question of 
history or geography out of their own village, or more than fifty 
years back;" 2 that " in this great Christian nation vice and its i 
resulting diseases exist to an extent utterly unknown in Pagan ' 
countries;" 3 that in spite of all tbe efforts of the religious world 
it is unsafe to walk the London streets, and that the curious and 
unexpected tendency of modern " civilization" is absolutely to 
destroy and exterminate the less polished nations with whom 
we are brought in contact. But the objection really applies not 
to the thing but to its abuse, not to civilization but to adminis- 
tration ; and it may safely be predicted that opinion will never 
be really educated so as to exercise a proper moral influence over 
government until the principles of the Reformation shall have 
been thoroughly carried out in the introduction of a better civil 
discipline, and until the church system, with its distorted ideas 
of truth and virtue, shall have been superseded by sounder ideas < 
of natural morality and progressive education. 

Pew will deny that modern English politics, uninfluenced by 
pressure from without, are too timidly practical, too much a 
wheel work of precedent, too indiscriminately prepossessed against 
the ideal and "Utopian." They are a mechanical tradition with- 
out fixed principle 4 save current utilitarian notions, derived 
through Hume and Hobbes from the Jesuits and Machiavelli. 
Doubtless government is an eminently practical thing; "it is 
conversant," says Bacon, " about subjects immersed in matter 
beyond all others, and hardliest reduced to axioms." Machiavelli 5 
created modern political science by founding it on human interests 
and experience independently of church theory. He heads the long 

1 Times, October 15, 1862, and also for January 19 and 22, 1857. 

2 Times, Oct. 15, 1862. 3 ibid, April 11, 1862. 

4 Lord Palmerston was lately eulogised by the Times for not being hampered 
by those " fixed weaknesses" called principles (20th Jan., 1863). 

5 Mr. Carlyle says that it is of no consequence to any one now what Master 
Nicolo thought ; and this with Louis Napoleon on the throne, instructing his 
general in Mexico to shew great deference for religion ! 



358 APPENDIX. 

array of practical unscrupulous politicians, disavowing the idealism 
which was indeed self-refuted by its impracticable character in 
Plato and Sir Thomas More. It was therefore not without a 
shew of justice that, after the definite establishment of inde- 
pendent national governments in Europe, Catholic advocacy in- 
sisted on the necessary deficiency of human power apart from 
moral and religious influences ; and Melancthon's claim of divine 
authority for the temporal and spiritual alike, was not only weak 
through its failure to define their limits, but through its liability 
to be perverted by immoral usurpation, a fallacy which in Eng- 
land two revolutions were needed to remove. The Jesuit advo- 
cate retorted that divided empire is impossible ; that the spiritual 
alone is divine, and that the church in that character had an 
absolute right to control the State. Secular authority was ex- 
plained to be held immediately and by delegation from the people, 
who retain even after such delegation their original right to 
recall or alter the appointment; thus admitting the existence 
of revolutionary rights, — to be exercised, of course, wherever 
Catholic influence prevailed, in the Papal interests. Toleration 
was unthought of except by exceptional men like Sir Thomas 
More ; and during the French civil wars the principles of Mariana 
were unsparingly applied. 

Protestant states vindicated the principle of national supremacy ; 
but with this exception, and excluding the right of insurrection, 
Hobbes embraces all the political inferences of Mariana, — a 
natural state of universal anarchy and war, with utilitarian 
1 government based on artificial compact as its end or cure. In- 
stead of the church-state, in which nations were Papal tributaries, 
we here have the absolute Erastianism of a state-church making 
religion the mere political machine which it has become in Pro- 
testant states. The system of Hobbes is only the consistent 
political application of Baconian principles. But empirical 
politics are careless of moral interests ; satisfied with securing 
peace, they look superciliously and suspiciously on all beyond 
the limits of the material that concerns progress ; even Spinoza, 
who recognizes in some sort the subordination of government to 
higher interests, identified right with force, and based the validity 
of laws and treaties on ordinary utility. 

Among empirical politicians the advocacy of toleration was 



APPENDIX. 359 

mingled with scepticism and indifferentism. The absolutism of 
Hobbes implies unbelief in everything save the utility of autho- 
rity and the general causal-nexus of the world; in Hume the 
latter half of the scanty creed is absent ; truth is resolved into 
custom, religion into mere policy, government into habit. "Not 
only," says Hume, " was Christianity at first accompanied with 
miracles, but even at this day it cannot be believed without one. 
Mere reason cannot convince us of its veracity f and he who is 
moved by faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle 
in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his under- 
standing, and gives him a determination to believe all that is 
most contrary to custom and experience." 1 

Here we have a signal illustration of the grand moral want of 
Protestant governments, a defect only made more painfully 
conspicuous by the hollow mockery of a " Protestant Church." 
"What can be more revolting than the spectacle of avowed sceptics 
and free-thinkers like Bolingbroke and Hume insisting on the 
necessity of institutions admitted in the same breath to be a 
delusion and a farce ; or Macaulay recognising little or nothing 
in religion save political establishment, and denying the possi- 
bility of progress in what is really the soul and meaning of all 
progress? 2 An affected concealment, a desire to keep things 
quiet, are the order of the day; the political journal endeavour- 
ing on any occasion of disturbing uneasiness 3 to reassure the 
startled herd by crying — " A false alarm ! we are not a specula- 
tive people ; things will assuredly settle down into the old 
routine;" or, again, hooting Dr. Colenso as "vermin," a "mere 
colonial," " a disappointed man taking his revenge upon the 
Bible simply because he fancies himself shelved among the 
niggers." 4 And why these unseemly demonstrations of deep- 
rooted antipathy to everything true and honest? "Why stoop 
to a vulgarity redolent of the stable, and an illiberality worthy 
of the dark ages ? Why so much zeal to edify and such un- 
willingness to enlighten ? It is because in England an abuse is 
a property ; the weakness and follies of one class making the 

1 End of the Essay on Miracles. 

2 See Review of Ranke. 

3 See the Times on the Charge of the Bishop of London, Dee, 4 f 1862. 
* Ibid., Feb. 16, 1863. 



360 APPENDIX. 

fortunes and vested interests of another, so that the fool's para- 
dise of contented ignorance must be maintained at all hazards, 
and the sole means of really moralising the state by bringing the 
better influences of education to bear upon opinion are either 
entirely overlooked, or attended to only with the sinister design 
of substituting a spurious article, and balancing the partial 
endowments of one sect by casting an additional largess in the 
name of education to be scrambled for by all. 1 Politicians pre- 
sume too much on the national vis inertia when in spite of 
history and philosophy, they persist in thus subordinating moral 
<- to material interests, and while thinking to arrest innovation, 
risk a revolutionary crisis through the accumulating forces of 
moral reprobation. For what else can result from hypocritically 
trifling with the most solemn obligations — from so manifest a 
scandal as the profession of an unworldly religion like Chris- 
tianity in an intensely material and worldly age? Of this 
diabolical travesty of a divine thing, this anomalous aggregate 
artificially held together, not, as Mr. Maurice suggests, by some 
high comprehensive truth, but by the attraction of peculation 
and the pressure of the Court of Arches, the following remarks 
of the Times on "subscription" are aptly illustrative 2 :— 

(( Paley proved that all the clergy could not possibly subscribe 
to everything in the thirty-nine articles, because when analysed 
they are found to contain three hundred and forty theological 
propositions, and it is impossible that ten thousand persons 
should be of the same opinion on so many subjects. The truth 
is that the terms of subscription are practically constituted by 
the understanding which accompanies them, an understanding 
of historical growth, — which is an essential part of the doctrinal 
fabric of the Church. Everybody knows what everybody means 

1 In a speech on Mechanics' Institutes at Barnsley, in October, 1853, Mr, 
Cobden mentioned his having told a Hungarian minister with whom he was 
conversing that a large portion of the English people were unable to read or 
write. How, then, exclaimed the Hungarian, do you continue to maintain 
your constitution, your franchises, and political liberties? Your institutions 
must be ahead of your people, and self-government is only a habit with you !" 
It is a habit, continued Mr. Cobden, and we will cling to it ; but we want a 
safer foundation. 

3 Remarks (July 24, 1861) in reference to Lord Ebury's motion for altering 
the terms of subscription, and substituting for the present Thirty-nine Articles 
something less restrictive. 



APPENDIX. 361 

who signs ; but it is impossible to express it in words. For how 
can you express an understanding ; especially an understanding 
of so complicated a kind as this ? It is not an understanding that 
you believe nothing ; — nor yet an understanding — as the fact of 
recourse to it implies — that you must believe everything ; — nor 
yet an understanding as to any precise medium between these 
extremes. But nevertheless it is an understanding that works 
well ; which is not practically abused to any large extent, and 
which secures for the Church on the whole a believing and 
orthodox clergy. If you want to express all this in a formula — 
how will you do it ? You will have to perform such feats with 
language as no conjuror ever performed. Language is an im- 
perfect instrument; its career is a series of blunders, it only 
deceives those who trust it. There has happily been found a 
mode of supplying it defects, — viz., by an understanding. Why 
should we fall back on an instrument notoriously incompetent 
for the purpose, to do that for which we have already devised 
a convenient substitute ? 

" Were all the Bishops, Archdeacons, Prebends, Deans set 
to work to express the existing understanding they could not 
succeed ; and nothing would be gained if they did succeed. It is 
impossible they should succeed, because it would be an attempt 
to make language serve a purpose for which it is inadequate. 
~No explicit statement can express all that is contained in that 
practical modification of the terms of subscription that time has 
established, and you might as well try to imprison in exact form 
and outline the impalpable air as to embody in any set of words 
the implicit intentions and animus of the Church of England." 

In short, a renewal of the immoral doctrine of the " fides 
implicita" in a political and nominally Protestant Church, than 
which nothing can be more monstrous. 



B.— (Page 11.) 



Between an unprogressive church and an actively advancing 
society there can be no fundamental sympathy or hearty coopera- 
tion. An institution making religion a mere routine, and the 
ignorance of the many the censor and tyrant of the enlightened 



362 APPENDIX. 

opinion of the few, can maintain its existence only by the cor- 
ruption of society. "A. young man beginning to think seri- 
ously," says Dr. Arnold, " will feel and see that the matter of 
his soul's salvation lies between God and Christ on one hand, and 
himself on the other; and that his belonging to this or that 
church has really no more to do with the matter than his being 
born in France or England, in "Westmoreland or "Warwick- 
shire." 1 Churches cling instinctively to a principle reversing 
the liberty of thought and conscience in which Christianity as 
well as Protestantism originated ; even the English church, 
although a comparatively recent Parliamentary creation, has often 
asserted and still covertly affects the impervious infallibility of 
Home. And yet, though a Protestant church be a self-contra- 
diction and a solecism, the English public, in its characteristic 
deference to authority and partiality for establishment, is, it 
seems, determined to have one. Religion is inexorably doomed 
to be dealt with as a commodity and administered by a company. 
Put then with the institution must be accepted all the conse- 
quences attending it ; — religion reduced to form, education to 
indoctrination; the probable insincerity of the clergy, the cer- 
tain stultification of the people; relative truth superstitiously 
treated as absolute, and set up as a mummy-like perpetuity, like 
those erect corpses in the Etrurian tombs which have been 
described as melting into dust after centuries of darkling 
longevity on the readmission of light and air;, the State exer- 
cising indeed a right of supremacy, but supremacy without a 
soul, dependent for its moral life on an external pressure of 
opinion which its fatal alliance with the Church contributes to 
demoralise and mislead. 

The recent author of certain very edifying and instructive 
illustrations of the " manners and customs of the English," 
undertakes in the name of literary criticism to pronounce the 
English multitude to be " the most unintelligent and narrow- 
minded that exists," But the question arises whether the 
result is not a natural consequence of the treatment; whether 
the inanition may not have been caused by the Church system of 
feeding and folding ; whether, in short, the multitude have not 

1 Life, vol. ii. p. 57. 



APPENDIX. 363 

been too much edified and too little instructed ? And indeed we 
are seasonably remiuded that a church, even if able and willing 
to instruct, has but a limited power of doing so. Free thought 
is for freethinkers ; but the churchman is not free ; his profession 
is strictly confined to the tether of his formulary. He may have 
ideas, but must not give them utterance until Lok has burst his 
chain, and the " religious life" has adopted and assimilated 
them. He may hold, says Dr. Lushington, 1 what opinions he 
pleases in private ; but he must not advisedly maintain or pro- 
mulgate publicly what contradicts the tenor of the Articles. 2 
"The clergy are a hierarchy of functionaries invested with 
certain privileges and endowed with certain emoluments exclu- 
sively of other men on certain conditions." These conditions 
are explained in the Times article 3 from which the foregoing 
words are taken, to be either wholly refraining from uttering 
their convictions, or else a more or less successful employment 
of ingenuity in bringing their convictions into agreement with 
the formularies. " A minister of the church," says the journal 
referred to, " must not publicly gainsay doctrines to which he 
has sworn adhesion. On what other basis can a church be con- 
stituted ? Doubtless truth is a higher idea than orthodoxy ; but 
then it is indefinite ; creeds and formularies have in themselves 
no charms for any but the most dogmatic minds ; but it is not so 
easy to shew that they are not a disagreeable necessity." Dr. 
Arnold defines " the church to be a means not indeed of raising 
men to heaven, but still of making them fit for heaven ; 4 on the 
other hand the literary mirror of common place reality above 
quoted insists that the clergy are not " a body of earnest men 
commissioned to improve the faith and practice of mankind," 
but only "a hierarchy of functionaries." They must adhere on 
pain of prosecution and deprivation to the Jesuitical maxim, 
" intus lit libet, — foris ut moris est/' " Such prosecutions," 

1 Judgment in the Williams case, p. 7. 

2 Dr. Pusey goes so far as to say (Times, March 24, 1863) that "a claim 
for unbounded liberty in the clergy is a claim for clerical selfishness. The 
clergy exist not for themselves, but for the people ; unlimited freedom of the 
clergy is oppression to the people. We are members of one body professing 
a common faith. The people do not want to be taught a different faith, else 
they would go elsewhere !" 

3 June 9th, 1862. * Lectures on History, p. 54= 



364 APPENDIX. 

says the Times (June 27, 1862), "are indispensable to the 
existence of an established Church. If we are to have an 
establishment, we must establish something; somewhere the 
limit must be drawn of what opinions are or are not to receive 
the support of the State. Mere opinion is, and, we trust, will 
always remain free in this country ; but clergymen must teach 
nothing contrary to the engagements into which they have 
entered. A clergyman may doubt of things which the framers 
of the Articles assumed to be too self-evident to require to be 
stated. He may hold doctrines susceptible of inferences sub- 
versive of recognized opinions. He may get entangled in the 
meshes of modern criticism, and doubt the genuineness of whole 
passages of what are usually accepted as sacred writings. He 
may contend that the books of the Old or New Testament are written 
by other persons than those whose names they bear, etc. But he 
must not teach or publish anything at variance with the formu- 
laries which he is bound to believe." The ultima ratio of a church 
is, in short, a formulary or test, which is of course legally bind- 
ing on voluntary subscribers and professional members. But the 
ulterior question remains, — is it compatible with the public in- 
terests to impose an arbitrary ultimatum incompatible with the 
actual state of knowledge; to deny to the clergy alone the 
general privilege of free citizens in advocating changes in the 
law, and thus in many cases almost compel the men entrusted 
with the highest spiritual interests to become official propagators 
of what they know to be fallacious? Is it rational to confer 
endowments which even Mr. Disraeli, in the very act of asking 
for more, admits to be " considerable," nay, altogether too " vast" 
to be held independently of the State, 1 upon a certain class of 
men to act as a spiritual police against theological assault, as- 
suming in the silly arrangement the carefully excluded daylight 
to be alone dangerous, and that in the dark established imbecility 
is necessarily safe. "The most intolerable evil in a State," says 
Montesquieu, 2 "is when the laws, instead of remedying cor- 
ruption, become its cause and source." And there can be no 
worse exemplification of legalised iniquity than when religion is 
made an elaborate machinery of self-deception, a demoralising 






1 Speech at High Wycombe.— Times, October 31, 1862. 

2 Spirit of Laws, vi. ch. 12. 



APPENDIX. 365 

conspiracy against truth founded partly on fear of its possible 
disclosures, and partly on an ignorant misconception of its nature. 
And the test system is not only misleading but useless; not 
only dishonest but unavailing. Protected by public and private 
persecution, it nevertheless fails to prevent damaging revelations, 
or to secure even a seeming unanimity in the ecclesiastical happy 
family, who, according to the candid admission of Mr. Maurice, 
ought properly to excommunicate one another if they followed ^ 
their natural instincts. And then the rarity of prosecutions, 
which the Times 1 exultingly alludes to as " startling exceptions 
to the ordinary course of events in this liberal age," is itself 
startling as bespeaking an enormous amount of indifference or 
hypocrisy. Conscience is silenced by compression, and the State 
offers a material inducement to insincerity which it is impossible 
for human nature to resist. Dr. Arnold, in the early part of his 
career, is said to have been assailed by those " difficulties" which 
clergymen often contrive to evade or to defy as devices of the 
enemy; 2 and by the advice of a sagacious " friend," — " a fellow 
of Oriel," — he, too, was happily enabled to surmount them. 
"Previous to taking orders, Arnold had distressing doubts on 
certain points in the Articles ; his state was very painful, and, 
I think, morbid ; for I remarked that the occasions of his distress 
were precisely those in which to doubt was against his dearest 
schemes of worldly happiness ; the consciousness of this seemed 
to make him distrustful of the arguments which were intended 
to lead his mind to acquiescence. He opened his mind to a 
friend, — a fellow of Oriel, — and from him he received the wisest 
advice, which he had the wisdom to act upon; he was bid to 
pause in his enquiries, to pray earnestly for help and light from 
above, and to turn himself more strongly than ever to the practi- 
cal duties of a holy life. He did so, and through severe trials 
was finally blessed with perfect peace of mind, and a settled con- 
viction." In relation to this matter Justice Coleridge adds an 
extract from a letter of the same "friend" to himself to the 
following effect : — 

1 June 27, 1862. 

2 " Scruples," says Dr. Charles Joan Vaughan (On Revision of the Liturgy, 
Introd. p. xxiv.) ''are a weakness, an evil, a disease; they are rather 
temptations than virtues." 



366 APPENDIX. 

"I have not talked with Arnold lately on the distressing 
thoughts which he wrote to you about, but fear from his manner 
at times that he has by no means got rid of them, though I feel 
quite confident that all will be well in the end. The subject 
of them is that most awful one, on which all very inquisitively 
reasoning minds are, I believe, most liable to such temptations — 
I mean the doctrine of the blessed Trinity. Do not start, my 
dear Coleridge ; I do not believe that Arnold has any serious 
scruples of the understanding, but it is a defect of his mind that 
he cannot get rid of, a certain feeling of objections ; — and par- 
ticularly when, as he fancies, the bias is so strong upon him to 
decide one way from interest ; he scruples doing what I advise 
him, which is, to put down the objections by main force, when- 
ever they arise in his mind, fearful that in so doing he should 
be violating his conscience for a maintenance/' 1 etc., etc. 

Accordingly at a later date we find the seduced transformed 
into the seducer ; the courageous advocate of an ideal church, 
the denouncer of " the infinite dishonesty and foolery of divinity 
lectures and pulpits," 2 protesting against impartial enquiry as 
profane, 3 and advocating a disingenuous subscription in the 
following terms 4 : — 

" The Articles and Liturgy were never meant to close the 
Church to those who cannot yield an active belief to every part 
of them as true without qualification or explanation ; otherwise 
the Church could of necessity receive into her ministry only men 
of dull minds and dull consciences; of dull, nay almost of 
dishonest minds, if they can persuade themselves that they 
actually agree in every minute particular with any great number 
of human propositions; of dull consciences if, exercising their 
minds freely and yet believing that the Church requires the total 
adhesion of the understanding, they still, for considerations of 
their own convenience, enter into the ministry in her despite. 

"You will say this makes the required adhesion indefinite, 
and so it must be; yet these things, so seemingly indefinite, are 
not really so to an honest and sensible mind, etc., etc. — to refuse 
subscription would be unjust to the Church and to itself." 

1 Arnold's Life, vol. i., p. 18. 

2 Life, vol. ii, p. 24 

3 Ibid., p. 61. * Ibid., p. 152. 



APPENDIX. 367 

A pupil and successor of Dr. Arnold at Harrow, 1 thus ex- 
presses himself on revision of the Liturgy : — 

"The Church of England has practically lost its machinery 
for self-modification. Convocation has no power, Parliament 
little fitness for the purpose. And if the difficulty of the process 
he great, the dangers of the result would be far greater. Bevi- 
sion would give tenfold stringency to subscription. It could no 
longer be pleaded then, as it may justly be pleaded now, that 
difficulty of alteration may excuse latitude of interpretation. 
"Whatever remains after revision must be taken as it stands, and 
interpreted, at least for a generation or two, according to its gram- 
matical sense. 2 If this be so, where, after revision, would be 
our national Church ? 

#*##$# * 

"If we were reconstructing our Church, the desire of peace 
might drive us into compromise ; God, who has given it to our 
generation as it is, has enabled us to make it minister to com- 
prehension. What is needed for the comfort of the scrupulous 
is rather interpretation than alteration ; the authoritative assur- 
ance that there is no dishonesty in their position, rather than such 
an adjustment of that position as, in accommodating them must 
exclude others." 

" It may be urged that if this be all which is to be understood 
by clerical subscription, the terms of subscription ought to be 
shaped accordingly, so as to remove ambiguities and relieve 

scruples Let every thing be done to soften, not to 

aggravate, the disappointment of the conscientious. . . . There 
has been a Providence at work beside and above the human 
authorship ; and the very loss of the Church's machinery for 
change justifies us in seeking the animus imponentis rather in 
the present than the past. Only let us be sure that we speak ac- 
cording to the Word of God ; and the words of men, when they 
are fairly capable of two constructions, may be interpreted, if so 
t be, rather by truth than by intention. 

" I desire to minister to the want of that young man who is 

1 Dr. Charles John Vaughan. _ 

3 For the reader's convenience it may be as well to translate this language ; 
it means that an old formula is better than a new one, because the old one 
is more easily manageable, people being already accustomed to see it evaded. 



368 APPENDIX. 

turning aside from the ministry of the Church solely on account 
of difficulties in the Prayer-book. Difficulties about the truth of 
Bevelation and doctrines of the Gospel are of a different order. 
These impose a grave responsibility upon all those who, in our 
schools and universities, have undertaken to guide the studies 
and to lead the thoughts — {i.e. the duties of Jesuitical indoctri- 
nation) ; but with these I am not dealing here. 

" I would say one word on the subject of scruples generally. 

"It is a first principle of morality that a scruple is to be 
respected. Its existence must be recognised as a fact. But the 
encouragement of scruples, the fostering of scruples, the multipli- 
cation of scruples, is no duty, but the very contrary. In them- 
selves scruples are a weakness, an evil, a disease. Where they 
fasten upon things which good men have done conscientiously, 
and have enjoyed God's blessing in doing, and have lived usefully 
and died peacefully in doing, scruples are much to be suspected 
of being temptations rather than virtues. It does not follow that 
because a scruple has arisen, therefore it must be ratified; nor 
that, because a scruple exists, therefore it must be paramount. 

" To apply these remarks to the case before us. On one side 
there is what I cannot but regard as a call from God to do His 
work. On the other there is a scruple. I must weigh the one 
against the other. Is the case such that the negative must 
outweigh the positive ? Is the case such that my hands would 
be tied, my mind fettered, or my lips sealed, in the exercise of 
my ministry? Or can I appeal to God who knows my heart 
that my desire is to do Him service in any station of life to 
which he calls me, and can I, in choosing this, — choosing it 
with the knowledge of some difficulties and some objections, — 
throw myself upon the belief that it is His will for me and 
go forward in His name ? 

"In such a balancing of conflicting alternatives lies the chief 
duty as well as the chief perplexity of life ; out of it we may 
well believe will issue what is right and good, that which would 
not result from a more one-sided or a hastier judgment. Happily 
it is the testimony of those who have had in youth experience of 
painful scruples to find that a life of healthy activity is generally 
rewarded by their disappearance." ' 

1 Five discourses on revision of the Liturgy. — Macmillan, 1860. 



APPENDIX 369 

Taking into account all the implied meaning of the above 
words, as well as other expressive commentaries on the subject 
which have recently appeared, it may be well to consider whether 
a systematically evaded test can serve any useful purpose ; 
whether it be judicious in the nation to prescribe to its pro- 
fessional teachers the lesson to be taught, tying them so down 
to flatter prejudice by lying in the Lord's name ? It is true, as 
Dr. Pusey says, 1 that " people don't want to be taught dif- 
ferently ;" for it is the curse of ignorance to be blind to its own 
failing; people don't want to be taught, but to be flattered and 
cajoled. " A popular speaker must not be too original ; were he 
so he would be unintelligible to his hearers, and would in fact 
disappoint them, because they go expecting and desiring to hear 
the ordinary recognised views; they want to have their own 
opinions reflected from the mouth of another, so as to be made 
comfortably self-complacent and self-satisfied." 2 Under these 
.circumstances no resource remains for the teacher in an age of 
active enquiry except the unsatisfactory alternative quoted from 
the Times at the beginning of this note, namely, either entire 
.silence, or adroit dissimulation. Indeed the two alternatives 
coalesce and melt into one another; since the " cloudy and 
guarded language" characterising the advanced theology of the 
present day amounts to little more than elaborate silence. "Cleri- 
cal writers," says the Times, "have acquired the faculty of so 
clothing their own rationalism in the language of Bible and 
Prayer Book that it is difficult for themselves or others to see 
any distinction;" and a modern German theologian has the 
audacity to thank God for this precious " gift." Dr. Schwartz, 
in his "History of Modern Theology," gives several instances of 
the balancing or equivocating devices by which objectionable 
angularities are rounded off, and the whole subject enveloped in 
the conventional twang of pious phraseology without any dis- 
tinct concession to irrational premises. One bilingual advocate 
is there quoted who describes Christianity in the following style : 
"Christianity is divine in its essence, — human in its form; 
divine in origin — human in realization and development; it 
possesses the originality and substantiality of a new religious 

1 Letter in the Times of March 4, 1863. 
3 Times, December 6, 1862. 

24 



370 APPENDIX. 

creation ; and yet it is in every sense historical ; in close and 
intimate connection with the general providential education of 
the human race, it springs to light in the fullness of time inter- 
woven with reality by a thousand ties; far transcending nature 
and reason, it is at the same time the truest nature and the 
highest reason ; for that which makes the essence and centre of 
Christianity, i.e. the divine love revealing itself on the cross for 
sinful man, no exercise of reason or thought could possibly have 
discovered ; the life which devotes itself wholly to the Deity does 
not spring from nature ; and yet we reverence it in the inmost 
recesses of our conscience as the restoration and glorious trans- 
figuration of the true human nature," etc. JSTeander's "Leben 
Jesu" is specially noted by Schwartz (p. 50) as dealing in these 
cowardly ambiguities. He never boldly confronts his antagonist; 
on the contrary, he gives up half the issue, making the author of 
a disputed book not indeed an apostle, but some friend or com- 
panion of an apostle; he neither insists on the historical nor 
admits the mythical, except in collateral and exceptional points ; 
thus trying to steer midway between two opinions with a shew 
of impartiality and magnanimity, assisted by reckless inexacti- 
tude of criticism, and leaving the ultimate decision to mere 
sentimental feeling. " I confess," says Dr. Schwartz, " that 
this kind of sentimental criticism which looks no difficulty man- 
fully in the face, and cod soling itself with trivial expedients ex- 
hibits a comfortable self-complacency in the midst of the most 
palpable contradictions, is utterly incompetent to meet the pun- 
gent and coherent suggestions of modern scepticism. 

The present task of a clergyman seeking preferment is very 
obvious. A very ordinary wooden stool has to be adapted to 
actual requirements; to be, as it were, newly covered, so as 
appropriately to make part of the becoming furniture of a modern 
establishment. A stiff and heavy tapestry concealed its naked- 
ness during the middle ages. This worn out, it was arrayed in 
plain black, accompanied with a defiant assertion that its internal 
framework, if openly seen and examined, would be found to be 
of pure gold. Scepticism whispered misgiving, and then elaborate 
arguments were adduced by unimpeachable divines to shew from 
the known character and ample testimonials of the upholsterers 
its necessarily sterling texture. Last of all, just as an exception- 



APPENDIX. 371 

ally plain spoken bishop, actuated of course by base motives, 
uncovers one of the legs of the homely implement, Canon Stanley 
cleverly throws over it a fair piece of new drapery of fanciful and 
picturesque manufacture, assuring us that there are few diffi- 
culties, if any, in the account of Isaac's sacrifice save such as 
"vanish of themselves before the simple pathos and lofty spirit 
of the narrative." Dr. Arnold once pleaded for the justice of 
exterminating the Canaanites, protesting against the exercise of 
impartiality in dealing with religious subjects as a denial of 
Christ; 1 and the happy idea of adjusting the style of professional 
teaching to the level of popular requirement has lately found a 
bold and ingenious advocate in Dr. Arnold's son, who presenting 2 
Spinoza in advantageous contrast to Colenso, deliberately advo- 
cates the iniquity of a double doctrine, and in his solicitude for 
"the religious life" recommends a wilful tampering with truth 
in order to edify (or mystify?) the multitude. Mr. Arnold pleads 
very zealously for "unction" and " edification." He looks to the 
Bible, not for the vulgar object of historical certainty, but in the 
"deep" design of recommending a popular lesson carefully toned 
down to chime in with the sympathies and predilections of " the 
religious life." Admitting Joshua to be not only untrue, but 
never intended as true, he yet recoils from the startling anomaly 
of an outspoken bishop who violates the implied rule of conven- 
tional decorum by announcing the fact. In short, he makes the 
mistake of openly and deliberately pleading for what has hitherto 
been demurely and silently practised by ecclesiastics on the con- 
venient footing of "an understanding." Much might doubtless 
be conceded to one so expressing himself in the time and under 
the circumstances of Spinoza; 8 but it is too bad to find an official 
director of education openly propounding the principle of Jesuitical 
insincerity and reserve before the English public of the present 
day, to whom a right to education in the real and English mean- 
ing has been formally conceded. There seems to be a lurking 
dread of the impending disclosure of some hideous secret, when 
so much eagerness is shewn in the advocacy of concealment; 

1 Life of Dr. Arnold, ch. viii. Letter 149, vol. ii. p. 60, and vol. i. p. 179. 

2 In Macmillan's Magazine, January and February, 1863. 

3 Yet Spinoza does not, as represented by Mr. Arnold, " entreat people not 
to read his book ;" lie only says he is not particularly anxious to press the 
reading of it on those who were sure to misapprehend and repel it. 



372 APPENDIX. 

when a thousand pulpits reverberate with fierce denunciations 
of a single individual, who, obnoxious only for an exceptional 
display of honesty, is allowed no fair opportunity of reply. It 
was well said in answer to Mr. Arnold's captious remarks about 
edification 1 that the best mode of edifying is to enlighten; and 
a suspicion occurs to Mr. Arnold himself 2 that this view of the 
case may possibly be taken by his readers. But he hastens to 
rebut the suggestion by sophistically adverting to the obvious 
absurdity of doing what he does himself ; namely, of deferring to 
the crude opinions of the unenlightened many (p. 243) without 
attempting to enlighten them ; then proceeding to justify the 
withholding enlightenment by pouring in a broadside of Scrip- 
ture quotations. But the passages cited for this sinister purpose 
are merely blunders. Those in Ecclesiasticus about " bursting" 
and ■" winking" have a meaning quite different from Mr. Arnold's 
application of them ; and the adoption of parabolic language by 
Christ as a test of natural capacity implies no justification of 
deceit. Christ did not hesitate to rebuke Chorazin, and assuredly 
set no example of excessive delicacy in affronting " the religious 
life" of Pharisaical hypocrites; his aim was not evasion but 
explanation; and parabolic language was well suited to express 
the sort of truth which it was his object not to suppress but to 
preach. On the whole Mr. Arnold is not happy in his quotations, 
nor are the Universities altogether fortunate in their Professors ; 
although one is able to suspend the law of gravitation, another 
to wrest Scripture into a sanction for duplicity. 

Mr. Arnold speaks of " the religious life" as if it were some- 
thing entirely separate and distinct from the province of reason. 
In his view the instructed few stand aloof and apart from the 
ignorant majority ; nor is there a clear indication of any means of 
terminating or even endeavouring to terminate this state of dis- 
memberment ; of a legitimate channel through which the intel- 
lectual ideas " fashioned in the laboratory of speculation" are to 
" filter down" and to be made to circulate through the mass of 
mankind. " The softening and humanising process effected 
through imagination must be very far advanced," says Mr. 
Arnold, " before intellectual demonstrations can be made without 

1 Saturday Review, January 17, 1863. 

2 In Macmillan's Magazine for January, 1863, p. 242. 



APPENDIX. 373 

danger.'' In short the world at large is still in its intellectual 
infancy; the "religious life" must be patiently waited for until 
it has either assimilated . scientific ideas for itself, or distantly 
apprehended their significance through the condescending in- 
genuity of the instructed few in softening the crude aliment for 
weaker digestions, and garbling the lesson by serving it up with 
the customary jargon and well-known nasal twang of the spiritual 
world. "Winking at ignorance" thus becomes a duty, and 
every one who in writing on religious matters fails to " attenuate 
the difficulties" by adjusting his language to current belief is a 
mere blunderer. In the exercise of his self-appointed office as 
Steward of the Mysteries, Mr. Arnold proceeds to point out a 
perfect model of what he thinks the fitting style of theological 
address in the recently published "History of the Jewish 
Church," written by his father's biographer, Canon Stanley. 
" Here," he says, "is an enquirer who, treating Scripture 
history in a perfectly free spirit, falsifying nothing, sophisti- 
cating nothing, leaves the sacred power of that history inviolate ; 
here is a book shewing what in religious matters is the true 
freedom of a religious speaker, and what the true demand and 
right of his hearers." 

The justice of this panegyric will be differently estimated 
according to the object proposed and the special predilections of 
the audience. Those who limit the right of the multitude to 
what is termed " edification" naturally find matter for encomium 
in the lively and eloquent descriptions, and the abundance of 
illustrative information collected. But there are others who, 
unsatisfied with mere fanciful pictures and topographical details, 
will think that straightforwardness and truthfulness have some- 
thing to do with the merit of a religious book and the " edifica- 
tion" to be gained from it ; who when they see an attempt to 
blink the question as to fact by an admonition to attend to the 
moral lesson, and to dwell on the story of the deliverance of the 
Israelites with the sole view of " being transformed by the renew- 
ing of their mind,"— will insist on having plain answers to plain 
questions; — "did these things really happen?" — "how, by 
whom, and with what intent were the accounts written?" — the 
very questions which apologists toiled in vain for a century to 
answer, but which it is now thought more convenient to depre- 



374 APPENDIX. 

cate and elude. Does Dr. Stanley really think that by jumbling 
the beginning with the end, and appealing to "the pathos and 
lofty spirit of the narrative," he really effects his escape from 
the difficulties of Isaac's sacrifice ? He admits that " the form 
taken by this human trial or temptation was that which the 
ancient idea of sacrifice assumed among the surrounding tribes, 
and that therefore it ought not to be left out of view ; that "deep 
in the heart of the Canaanitish nations was laid the practice of 
human sacrifices ! Such was the trial which presented itself to 
Abraham." Dr. Stanley's description of the Samaritan Passover 
and the roasting of the victims "in a deep pit sunk in the earth 
with a fire at the bottom" (p. 517), is a curious and useful 
illustration of the Scripture descriptions of Tophet and of the 
characteristic worship of the infernal Deity in deep cavities and 
hollows of the rocks j. 1 but the author proceeds to " attenuate the 
ulterior difficulties" of Isaac's sacrifice as follows : — 

"Human sacrifice, which in outward form was nearest to the 
offering of Isaac, was in fact and in spirit most entirely con- 
demned and repudiated by it." . . . . " The sacrifice, the resig- 
nation of the will, in the father and the son, was accepted ; the 
literal sacrifice was repelled ; on the one hand, the great principle 
was proclaimed that mercy is better than sacrifice ; on the other, 
the inhuman superstition was condemned." 

But then the same condemnation expressed in the same way 
by a substitutive offering is found elsewhere, and must be 
allowed the same qualifying import in both cases as impeaching 
the historical certainty of anterior practice. The legendary 
annals of most nations among whom human sacrifice has pre- 
vailed contain some collateral account of a merciful alternative 
suggested by Numa, Hercules, or other public benefactor, to 
propitiate the Deity in lieu of the human victim. The burning 
of witches and of heretics has for a considerable number of years 
been discontinued in this country ; and yet it would be no true 
representation of history to say that these acts were at no time 
deemed a fitting means of shewing zeal in God's service. And 
how can it accord with the character of the unchanging Deity to 

1 Isai. xxx. 33; lvii. 5; 1 Kings xviii. 40; Odyssee x. 517; xi. 25; 
Horace, Sat. 1, 8, 28 ; Pausanias, 9, 39, 4 ; and the offerings of the Magi 
" in sunless places," Plutarch's Isis and Osiris, ch. 46. 



APPENDIX. 375 

suppose that he would " tempt Abraham" by deliberately de- 
ceiving him as to his wishes on a matter already rendered so 
terribly seductive through the practice of the surrounding 
nations ; or how was the faith and resignation of Abraham 
better shewn by acquiescing in the cruel mandate than it had 
been by believing in God's righteousness instead of unrighteous- 
ness, and disclaiming the suggested murder as a temptation of 
the devil ? l And how does this alleged repudiation accompany- 
ing the recommendation of human sacrifice on so solemn and 
memorable an occasion agree with the subsequently established 
Jewish law as to vows and as to the first-born ; or with the later 
prevalence of the practice disclosed by the narrative as still 
unhesitatingly enacted, as still unsuppressed by Levitical prohi- 
bition, — -"the wild vow of Jepthah, the sacrifices of Saul's sons, 
those perpetrated by the Jewish kings in the valley of Hinnom 
under the very walls of Jerusalem," those practices in which, as 
admitted by Dr. Stanley, " the burning zeal of the time found 
its terrible expression," and which form the subject of pro- 
phetical denunciation down to and even after the captivity ! 
But all this, if we shut our eyes to it, of course " vanishes away 
before the simple pathos and lofty spirit of the narrative !" 

Again, at the risk of being decried by "literary criticism" as 
importunate literalists "offensive to the religious life," people 
will ask whether Dr. Stanley really believes in the truth of the 
Egyptian plagues about which he so eloquently talks ? He says 
"it is no ordinary river which is turned into blood; it is no 
ordinary nation ; it is not the ordinary cattle or the ordinary 
fish." But then why keep us on the river side halting between 
two opinions ; was the river — ordinary or extraordinary as you 
please — actually turned into blood or was it not ? Dr. Stanley 
replies — " If these things were calamities anywhere, they were 
truly 'signs and wonders' in the land of Ham (p. 117); the 

1 This, the natural construction put upon the narrative by better informed 
Jews in later times (see Fabricius Cod. Ps. V. T., vol. i. 86i ; ii. 120), 
and by the Ophitae, seems after all to be that really adopted by Dr. Stanley, 
■who justifies the referring diabolical acts to God from 2 Sam. xxiv. 1 ; 
I Chron. xxi. 1. See Kant's remark (Religion within the Bounds of 
Eeason, 2nd part, 2nd sect.) : — "If we are presented with an act supposed to be 
supernaturally ordered by God which is evidently immoral, as, for instance, 
if a father is supposed to receive a divine command to kill his son, then we 
may be assured that in spite of the appearance of a miracle, it is no miracle . ' 



X 



376 APPENDIX. 

locusts, the flies, the murrain, the darkness of the sandy wind, 
are calamities natural to Egypt, though rare; but not the less 
are they the intervention of a power above the power of man !" 

True ! but were they interventions of a power above the 
power of nature ? Are these things really so as they are told, or 
are they meant only as an allegory? Dr. Stanley skillfully 
avoids the rocks and quicksands of religious controversy ; but we 
cannot help feeling in proportion to our confidence in his general 
competency to deal with the details of his subject, the greater 
disappointment at the tyrannical conditions under which he seems 
compelled to approach it. 

Yet one more question, as to the deliverance out of Egypt. 
Dr. Stanley is plain and explicit enough at the two ends of the 
narrative, but becomes hazy and "docetic" in the middle. He 
expatiates on "that strange land of the exile and bondage, 
that land of Egypt with its mighty river, its immense build- 
ings, its monster worship, its grinding tyranny, its overgrown 
civilization;" approaching the Red Sea, we stand for an instant 
perplexed by a topographical difficulty between Migdol and 
Pihahiroth, and then comes the awful crisis of danger and 
deliverance; the Israelites, in the evening encamped on the 
west shore, are found in the morning on the eastern ! How 
did they get through the water? Surely this ought not to be 
ignored as unimportant to " the religious life." Does Dr. 
Stanley think the people got over naturally by means of an 
east wind, or that they passed supernaturally between the two 
watery walls? Here provokingly enough he leaves us in the 
lurch, escaping in a nimbus of poetical imagery (p. 127) : 

" We must place it before us, if possible, not as we conceive 
it from pictures, or from our own imaginations, but as described 
in the words of the sacred narrative, illustrated by the Psalmist, 
and by the Commentary of Josephus and Philo. The passage 
thus described was effected, not in the calmness and clearness of 
daylight, but in the depth of midnight ; amidst the roar of the 
hurricane which caused the sea to go back; amidst a darkness 
lit up only by the broad glare of the lightning as the Lord 
' looked out' from the thick darkness of the cloud. ' The waters 
saw thee, Lord, the waters saw thee, and were afraid ; the 
depths also trembled. The clouds poured out water; the air 



APPENDIX. 377 

thundered ; thine arrows went abroad ; the voice of thy thunder 
was heard around; the lightning shone upon the ground; the 
earth was moved and shook withal.' "We know not, they knew 
not, by what precise means the deliverance was wrought; we 
know not by what precise track the deliverance was effected. 
We know not, and we need not know—" 

Nay, but we ought to know whether Dr. Stanley means the 
narrated circumstances to be taken as miraculous or not. He 
goes on to observe — 

" Whatever the means employed by the Almighty, whatever 
the path he made for himself in the great waters, it was to Him, 
and not to themselves, that the Israelites were compelled to look 
as the cause of their escape." 

True ; but the doubt is still unresolved as to what is to be our 
view of the matter ; what is Dr. Stanley's own view, — no un- 
7 important question surely for a religious teacher, since the whole 
theory of religion and of the universe depends on it. The ques- 
tion is not what the Jews believed, but what we are to believe ; 
is the universe governed by undeviating law, or by miraculous 
intervention ? Dr. Stanley's language is too guarded to give a 
certain answer ; and although some indications, such as his de- 
scription of the hurricane (proceeding undoubtedly from causes 
beyond human control), the allusion to the siege of Ley den and 
the overthrow of the Spanish Armada, etc., would lead us to 
suppose the narrative to be taken by him as a mere legendary 
basis for pious reflection and picturesque illustration, still it were 
hazardous to assume a latitude of construction which the writer, 
if consulted, might very possibly reject. And yet apart from a 
satisfactory response to the vital question, such as it is vain to ex- 
pect from a modern Churchman, the varied lore and picturesque 
descriptions of the book seem mere eloquent rhodomontade, a 
triumphant jubilation over a successful "burking" of the real 
difficulty, very similar in character to the method employed by 
the Jesuits to make imagination supersede reason by an elaborate 
recapitulation and eesthetical realisation of external circumstances 
and scenic details ; amounting in short to little more than an 
exemplification of the " spiritual exercises" of Loyola in the 
"application of the senses" to certain portions of Scripture. 
And the resemblance is made still more emphatic by a strained 



378 



APPENDIX. 



effort to rescue the Scripture credit by slurring over or casuisti- 
cally palliating the grossest immoralities. "When, for instance, 
after seeing Esau and Jacob clearly placed before us, " standing 
with unwonted distinctness in the clear distance," the one charac- 
terised by all the basest traits of duplicity and chicane, the other 
generous, heedless, and irresolute, we are carefully told that the 
former must be preferred on account of the settled perseverance 
with which he pursued his "birthright" of self-interest as "in- 
heritor of the promise," 1 that this "fixed principle" elevates 
those baser qualities, which we know so well in the modern Jew, 
to "lasting good," "softening and purifying away" the harsher 
features of the character, — who does not see in this deliberate 
selection of the character to be "loved" in the calculating cheater 
of his father the address of the Biblical advocate rather than 
the sincerity of the truth-loving enquirer ? And when Dr. 
Stanley feels compelled by the acquiescent submission of his 
moral perceptions to Bible dicta not only to excuse, but to endorse, 
the execrable treachery of Jael and the justice of the encomium of 
Deborah on the score of their being endued with only a small 
portion of " that divine light which went on brightening more 
and more unto perfect day," when he tries to corroborate the 
feeble justifications obtained from the examples of Charlotte 
Corday or Harmodius and Aristogeiton by quoting Dr. Arnold 
and Coleridge, 2 one could wish that he had been permitted by his 
too deferential sympathy with "the religious life" to finish the 
quotation by stating at length the subsequent words of Coleridge : 
"Let me once be persuaded that these utterances of human 
hearts are but the Divina Commedia of a superhuman ventrilo- 
quist, then all is gone, all sympathy at least, and all example. . . . 
The consequence of adhering to the literal doctrine of Bible 
inspiration is that divines who so understand it, in answering 
the question as to the transcendent blessedness of Jael, and the 
righteousness of the act in which she inhospitably, treacherously, 
perfidiously, murdered sleep, close the controversy by observing 
that they want no better morality than that of the Bible, no 

1 "Winding up with, a fulsome address of the hypocrite to his God, " God, 
I am not worthy of the least of all thy mercies and of all the truth which thou 
hast shewn to thy servant." — Gen. xxxii. 10. 

2 Confessions of an Enquiring Spirit, pp. 66, 72. 



APPENDIX. 



379 



other proof of an action being praiseworthy than that the Bible 
declares it worthy to be praised !" 

The following illustration of the demoralising tendency of a 
too literal acquiescence in the idea of Bible infallibility is ex- 
tracted from "Tholuck's Sermons on the Main Points of Christian 
Faith and Life," vol. iv., pp. 57, 58. 

"I do not deny that the Bible may make thee seem small in 
thy own eyes, destroy thy self-complacency, strip thee of all 
comeliness of form, until thou shrinkest in horror from thyself. 
But the same faith which changes into flesh and blood the Bible 
utterances as to the corruption of our heart, changes also into 
flesh and blood the grace and power so plentifully offered to ns 
in God's "Word. When our heart approved us while the Bible 
condemned, we believed the Bible against the testimony of our 
heart ; now, when our heart condemns while God's Word pardons 
on condition of faith, we again believe God's Word and give it 
the precedency against the testimony of our own conscience !" 

Religion is thus made a thing of mere sound and crazy senti- 
ment, or else of dogmatical precept as noxiously demoralising in its 
way as the arbitrary " virtue" of the church. And yet why should 
morality be thus warped, and the natural course of intellectual 
training be ignominiously reversed ? Why should the clergy, 
whose power is so great, court and encourage the ignorance of 
the mob, thus tightening a fetter which, with a free press con- 
fronting them, must inevitably strangle them at last ? It is 
because it is the essential nature of an ecclesiastical regime to 
minister to the prejudices on which it subsists. Although in 
reality nothing can be less in harmony with the tendencies of 
the age, or more likely to make religion itself an object of aver- 
sion or contempt, than to insist on identifying it with represen- 
tatives who by their intolerance of opinion, their interference 
with the recreations of the poor, 1 and the general illiberality of 

1 The bishops inaugurated the new year 1863 (see the newspapers of 
December 30, 1862) by a protest on behalf of what they presume to call " the 
will of God" against Sunday excursions; and even now {Tunes, March 30, 
1863) they are issuing mandates to the clergy to close the pulpits against Dr. 
Colenso in order to prevent his having any fair opportunity of a hearing in 
reply to their multitudinous invectives. But fair play is not applicable to the 
pulpit ; and it would be indeed strange if in the clerical management of 
controversy " the reciprocity" were not all on one side. 



380 



APPENDIX. 



their conduct, seem intent on realising the justice of the slur 
cast by Tacitus on Christianity, as if it meant " hatred of the 
human race." A vicious system exercises a contaminating 
influence on everything connected with it. Churchmen, married 
or unmarried, have ever formed a class apart, standing, even 
under the most favourable circumstances, in a questionably 
sinister relation to their fellow men. Their interests are not the 
common interests, and their style and language are something 
peculiarly their own. The Times of July 15, 1862, thus 
remarks on the Church Congress recently held at Oxford under 
the presidency of " the indefatigable bishop of the diocese" : — 

" The reverend or very reverend speaker, — right reverend we 
must not add, — writes or says what looks well on paper, begging 
every question, describing everything just for the purpose, and 
offering airy suggestions, interlarded with unctuous phrases, vain 
regrets, and specious promises. Heaven knows where the people 
who talk, and preach, and write on these subjects, get their 
notions of men and women. Certainly not from this weary, 
working, week-day world. According to them a human being 
is either a soul to be treated by some theological process, or a 
body to be buried and paid fees for, or a name for a subscription 
list, or an ' object' for some charitable institution, or the unit of 
a ' neglected population,' or the occupant of a free seat, or 
perhaps, under peculiar circumstances, a proper subject for vows, 
a peculiar dress and a breviary. As one reads their lucubrations, 
in which sacred words and terms of holy endearment have been 
inserted to repletion, something tells you that it is all outsides, a 
mere play of human counters, and that as Bonaparte regarded 
men as food for powder, these people regard their fellow 
creatures as the objects of institutional enterprise and of eccle- 
siastical manipulation. You look round and consider the deepest 
personal interests and spiritual anxieties that have occupied, or, 
may be, still occupy, your life ; the people you see, and know, 
and care for, and would give the world to see saved, or in the 
way to it. What good will five hundred of such priests and 
prophets do to them or you ? On all sides in this great metro- 
polis one hears the earnest wish that the church which talks so 
much would come home to people a little more, and help them 
in their actual difficulties. It is but too plain that we must go 



APPENDIX. 381 

elsewhere for this purpose than to institutional Christianity, 
parochial organisations, and Ecclesiastical Congresses. 

"But the congress was practical, and dealt with realities. At 
once softened and sobered by the bright eyes of some hundred 
ladies in the galleries of the Sheldonian theatre, the Congress 
rather stoutly deprecated vows of celibacy in Sisters of Mercy. 
Then, that solemn old impostor, the church-rate, intruded itself, 
and, unwelcome as the subject must have been to some of the 
clergy, there was no help but to join in the vulgar cry for its 
perpetual maintenance. Pew-rents, too, came in for just execra- 
tion, as a dissenting novelty, and a surrender of the poor man's 
church. The offertory is so much more graceful, so much more 
mediaeval, and, as we are assured, actually successful in some 
Staffordshire churches. But what excited the Congress to the 
highest pitch of enthusiasm was the right of pronouncing the 
Church's last solemn benediction on every dissenter, schismatic, 
or infidel who might be brought to the churchyard. Whatever 
degree of interest the Church may feel in the living, it is de- 
termined that once dead they shall belong to her alone. Once 
dead all controversy shall end. A ceremony shall wipe off all 
scores, and the man with whom the Church had no more to do 
than with the dogs that wander about the streets shall be for- 
warded to the other world with at least a viaticum of good 
wishes. These are the questions which the Church militant 
fights about. Yet we read somewhere about the dead being left 
to bury their dead, as if it did not so very much signify how the 
poor dust was disposed of when the soul had once sped its 
unknown way. But the Church of the dead will be very zealous 
for the dead, and jealous of their guardianship." 



C— (Page 62.) 

On the Religious Import of Philosophy, 

"We suffer not so much from want of knowledge as of moral 
courage and integrity. "Why do not the legitimate originators of 
new ideas display more zeal in promoting their "intellectual in- 
filtration." But ill practice infects theory ; and the concep- 
tional estimate of religion sinks to the level of its usual treat- 



382 APPENDIX. 

ment. The view of philosophy taken by Macaulay in his account 
of Bacon is such as to supersede the necessity of an apology for 
the following remarks in justification of a different one. 

Macaulay' s view of philosophy is connected with a narrow view 
of religion, considered as unprogressive political establishment, 
instead of being itself the very soul of progress, the highest and 
most energetic form of man's spiritual life. 

He claims the name of philosophy exclusively for utilitarian 
science, narrowing the term far more rigidly than Bacon intended. 
Bacon no doubt looked to knowledge with a view to power, or to 
increase human comforts and conveniences. But he considered 
the power susceptible of indefinite expansion proportioned to the 
enlargement of knowledge ; endeavouring to promote this enlarge- 
ment until its range should be coextensive with that of nature ; 
whereas his politically warped followers would limit its range to 
a special side of nature, at the same time disparaging theoretic 
knowledge generally, although by so doing they in fact disparage 
the theorist Bacon, and degrade science itself to the level of mere 
empirical art. 

Kuno Fischer, in his work on Bacon, shews how the great 
philosophic innovator and reformer naturally took a negative and 
hostile attitude to preceding systems, thus becoming unfair to 
history in defiance of his own rules. He found the old in evident 
antagonism to what he held to be the true ; and hence, in his 
sanguine anticipations of the magnificent future of science, he 
was led to condemn the past as the world's helpless youth, and to 
treat yesterday as the thwarting hindrance instead of the parent 
of to-morrow. But the view which three centuries ago was 
natural and salutary is no longer applicable now. Since Bacon's 
time history has become part of philosophy, and it has been 
usual since Leibnitz and Lessing to look at ancient and modern 
civilization as intimately blended and connected, as a continuous 
development, the Providential education of the human race. 
Bacon did not possess the psychological key to history so as 
to unravel the conditioning relations of past and present ; history 
to him was only the raw material for ulterior scientific manipula- 
tion ; although he was the first to feel that the human mind has 
a history ; that it is the pupil of nature in a course of progressive 
education. 



APPENDIX. 383 

Macaulay fails to apprehend these circumstances. He makes 
Bacon's defect still more defective, not only vaguely depreciating 
the preceding philosophy, and placing science in disadvantageous 
contrast with shoemakers, but making what in "Bacon was an 
incidental though inevitable misapprehension into a fundamental 
axiom. 

Judged by its flowers and leaves, says Macaulay, the tree 
which Socrates planted and Plato watered is the noblest of trees ; 
but if we take the homely test of fruits, our opinion may be less 
favourable. This philosophy exercised the faculties of disputants, 
but did nothing to increase the comforts of man. The Stoics and 
Epicureans were declaimers, canters, and wranglers ; trifles, false 
assumptions, engaged the vigorous intellects of the Schoolmen; 
the Florentine Platonists did some little good by offering a choice 
of speculative tyrants, and a spark of freedom was produced by 
the collision of adverse servitude ; still during all these ages 
philosophy was barren ; it consisted of words, mere words ! 

But words represent thought, and thought is man's great pre- 
rogative, his spiritual life. The vacancy complained of is really 
in the defective appreciation of the observer. And what an ex- 
traordinary blank in the mind of a philosopbical historian; how 
great the delusion which, though recognizing in Socrates and 
Plato "the greatest men the world had ever seen," condemns all 
their efforts as useless and fruitless ; as having been expended 
on a treadmill of dialectics, producing much exertion and no 
progress ! 

Macaulay's error, says K. Fischer, consists in the indiscriminate 
adoption of a Baconian prejudice. Bacon pleaded for a closer 
intimacy with nature, and disclaimed what seemed to him the 
false and empty character of preceding speculation; Macaulay 
decries all speculation, making Bacon's relative disclaimer into 
an absolute and universal one, although Bacon's rashness in 
generally undervaluing the opinions of antiquity as idola tlieatri 
was already an "idol of the forum and den " in himself. 

Yulgar utilitarianism sees no possible advantage except in 
material things palpably contributing to ■ the comforts of life. 
Philosophy, according to Macaulay's dictum, is for the use of 
man, not man for the use of philosophy. The true measure of 
the value of speculation is doubtless its utility; and no philosophy 



384 APPENDIX. 

was ever so merely speculative as to have no human want in 
view. But there are spiritual wants as well as sensual ones ; 
the bodily appetite appeased, human nature presses on instinctively 
to know, and needs no license from "literary criticism" in seeking 
unlimited gratification of the want, although in the first stages 
of founding an intellectual empire the subject of religion was 
omitted by Bacon as a matter both anomalous in itself, and as 
already provided for by the positive regulations of the State. 

Yet even now the utilitarian politician, to whom religion is a 
State institution, cannot see the religious import of philosophy ; 
he cannot relish the aroma of the " flowers" which refreshed 
the soul of Socrates in his last moments, or appreciate the 
elevation of thought which makes Seneca after all rank higher 
than the shoemaker. It were out of place here to try to shew 
how in the very philosophies disparaged by Macaulay the 
human mind was slowly laying the firm basis of all its future 
conquests by definitively establishing its own freedom ; how the 
idealism of Plato or of Christianity, although abstract and in- 
adequate to present requirements, were indispensable preliminaries 
in the assertion of this freedom. The free feeling of religion an- 
ticipated the slow gradations of later progress; and if the narratives 
of the first explorers of an unknown territory are still interesting 
even to those familiar with the country traversed, how much so 
when they record the prophetic aspirations of fresher and far 
more vigorous intellects in search of a region still undiscovered 
and untrod ! Morality and philosophy, — education and religion^ 
— are but different aspects of one thing ; for all moral existence 
is an education; and all morality — the continuous search for a 
higher good under conditions, or according to a given law which 
it is the province of philosophy to define, may be said in the 
widest and most universal view of it, to be religion ; for the circle 
and comprehension of the good increases with the capacity and 
culture of the observer, until he rises from common-place utility 
to the contemplation of a wider good, and finally to supreme or 
universal. For an interesting elucidation of these subjects in 
their historical as well as philosophical aspects, reference may be 
made to the preliminary chapters of the first volume of Kuno 
Fischer's "History of Modern Philosophy," and to the first serie s 
of Jouffroy's "Melanges Philosophiques ; " and the reader may 



APPENDIX. 385 

safely be left to judge for himself whether Macaulay's imputation 
of vacuity means anything more than his own deficiency ; whether 
he who regards revelation as a mere book, 1 and cannot give any 
precise or intelligible explanation of so grand a phenomenon as 
Christianity itself considered as an essentially integrating element 
in the concatenation of mental development, can be a perfectly 
safe guide in discussing the history of philosophy. 



D.— (Page 165.) 
A New-old Plea for Miracle. 

A certain doctrine is offered for acceptance; a miracle is 
wrought to prove its truth. But we are now told that the 
miracle is no satisfactory proof at all; it may be a diabolical 
miracle, " the tricks and juggleries of Antichrist and his organs," 
" a horrible warning devised by an ambassador of the bottomless 
pit;" 2 only when I am already convinced of the soundness of 
the doctrine can I admit the genuineness of the miracle. But 
then what is the use of the miracle ? We are answered that it 
is for the purpose of determining the character of the performer 
as a divine messenger. But then why should God employ a 
mode of attestation confessedly liable to so awful a mistake? 
especially when the only use of so attesting the nature of the 
performer is to guarantee the authenticity of a message already 
accredited and guaranteed before these precarious credentials are 
presented. 

The following renewal of an old excuse is from a book entitled 
"The Bible and Modern Thought," by the Eev. T. R. Birks, 
M.A., published by the Religious Tract Society, Paternoster 
Bow, pp. 63, 64 : 

" It is a wholly false view of inductive science that it is occu- 
pied with the investigation of laws which are necessary and 

1 "Natural theology is not a progressive science; — nor is revealed. All divine 
truth is, according to the Protestant churches, recorded in certain books; — 
hence in divinity there cannot he a progress ; — a Christian of the fifth century 
with a Bible is neither better nor worse off than a Christian of the nineteeth 
with a Bible." — See Review of Banke, p. 8. 

2 Trench on the Miracles, p. 23. Olshausen's Commentary, i. 262, 

25 



386 



APPENDIX. 



unalterable. The very reverse is the truth. Deductive science 
alone is occupied with necessary truth; applied or inductive 
science deals with phenomena, and through these with laws, of 
which the essential feature is that they are not necessary, and 
that they repose on the basis of multiplied testimonies ; so 
that deviations from them and even their reversal are quite con- 
conceivable, and demand our faith if sustained by due evidence. 

"Again, the objection involves a total misconception of the order 
of nature and the constancy of natural laws. It is true the 
progress of physical science enables us to refer to some law or 
property of matter many phenomena which were once inex- 
plicable ; nor can we doubt that further advances in the same 
direction will yet be made. But this movement, by which the 
horizon of science perpetually recedes and enlarges, instead of 
proving the inflexible constancy of natural laws, proves exactly 
the reverse. It transfers the certainty from the physical laws of 
nature, as now defined by our present knowledge, to the scheme 
of universal providence, as it lies open to the view of Omniscience, 
and thus resolves itself into a philosophical rendering of the 
doctrine of the Bible, ' known unto God are all his works from the 
beginning of the world ! ' Our own experience reveals the constant 
action of the human will upon the body ; we count it absurd to 
speak of mere physical law deciding the movements of the ball, 
the marble, or the orange, when once placed within the grasp of a 
human hand. Once let us conceive spiritual beings whose power 
bears the same proportion to ours as the mass of the earth to an 
orange, and the seeming immutability of physical law disappears." 

The writer proceeds to argue that miracles are not infractions 
of law generally, but only instances of the suspension of a lower 
in obedience to a higher law ; using the not very happy illustra- 
tion — already but too familiar — of the suspension of the law of 
gravitation when wood floats on the surface of water (p. 66). 

Man's ignorance of essential causation is then adverted to as 
affording room for belief in exceptional agency on the part of 
God (p. 67). In regard to this, Kant has already replied, in the 
passage above cited (p. 1 65). The sophist proceeds to avail himself 
of the ambiguity between empirical laws, and the absolute or 
ultimate law of universal order, in order to displace the idea of 
the latter ; but the artifice is easily seen through. 



APPENDIX. 387 

E.— (Page 199.) 
Lechler and Ritschl. 

It is naturally a main object with the opponents of the 
Tubingen School to distort the plain meaning of the second 
chapter of Galatians, and to force this formidable chapter into 
seeming harmony with Acts. A recent effort of the kind by 
J. C. K. v. Hoffmann is discussed at length by Dr. Hilgenfeld in 
his "History of the Canon," p. 190 sq. It will suffice here to 
give a specimen of the style of argument adopted, taken from 
the above-named authors. 

The aim of these advocates is to disclaim absolute antino- 
mianism in St. Paul, and indiscriminate rigorism in the older 
apostles. All that the latter required in Gentile converts was, 
according to Ritschl, the conditions of the apostolic decree 
mentioned in Acts xv., — by this writer supposed to have been an 
original compact refused only by extreme parties, and which, as 
concerning Gentiles merely, tacitly implied the continuing obli- 
gation of Mosaic law on Jewish converts. Disagreement first 
arose in consequence of certain extreme views varying from the 
moderation of this compact; the stricter Judaists insisting on 
more than the requisitions of the decree; while the free prin- 
ciples of St. Paul tended through their unavoidable extension 
from Gentiles to Jews 1 to introduce an unwarranted laxity, such 
as that of the eaters of udaXoOvra at Corinth, 3 or the Mcolaitans 
of the Apocalypse. These latitudinarian practices were no more 
approved by St. Paul than by St. John ; but the circumstances 
of mixed communities in Gentile countries caused inevitable 
complications. The preponderance of the Gentile element tended 
to absolute freedom; while the rigorous Judaists pressed only 
the more pertinaciously for stricter observance. Hence the 
dispute at Antioch ; the emissaries of James there admonished 
Peter to adhere to the stipulations of the decree ; while Peter in 
an excess of obsequious servility went even beyond those stipu- 
lations in accommodating himself to the requirements of the 
strict Judaists. The sole difference between the apostles was as 
to the obligations of Jew- Christians in Gentile lands ; even this 

1 Acts xxi. 1. 2 1 Cor. viii. 1. 



388 APPENDIX. 

partial disagreement was of short duration; and illiberal Ju- 
daistic rigorism never had apostolical support. 

This theory rests on the assumed authenticity of the famous 
apostolical decree, which Baur, Zeller, and others have so con- 
clusively shewn to be apocryphal ; secondly, it , assumes an 
erroneous notion of the relation of the older apostles to St. Paul, 
founded on a misinterpretation of the second chapter of Galatians. 

1st. It has been proved by Zeller in his work on the Acts 
that the account in Acts xv. and that in Gal. ii. refer to the 
same circumstances. Now in one of these we have the unques- 
tionably authentic account of St. Paul himself, in which it is 
impossible, in spite of all the efforts of ingenuity, not to recognise 
disagreement among the apostles and incompatibility with the 
account in Acts. 1 The attempt made to place the attempted cir- 
cumcision of Titus solely to the account of the "false brethren" 2 
fails entirely. St. Paul is narrating the results of his negotia- 
tion with the general Christian body in Jerusalem, especially 
with its apostolic leaders ; and it is wholly incredible under the 
circumstances that an assault on the freedom which he advocated 
could have been made unknown to or unsanctioned by the 
apostles. This is indeed at last admitted by Eitschl himself 3 
where he says that the " false brethren" had "succeeded in 
imposing" on the apostles; who are thus declared by the most 
unimpeachable testimony to have insisted in the case of the 
Gentile Titus on a condition which, according to Acts, they 
had definitively abandoned. 

The same inference in regard to the older apostles which 
results from this incident, altogether omitted in "Acts," follows 
from the sequel of St. Paul's statement. And it may be asked how 
could St. Paul have here said that " they who seemed to be some- 
what in conference added nothing to him," if, as related in Acts, 
he undertook, in consequence of their representations, the obliga- 
tions of the decree in regard to the Gentiles ? "Why pass over 
those stipulations in entire silence on an occasion when, if they 
existed at all, he was bound to have mentioned them ; especially 
when he does mention one stipulation (ver. 10) as to which "Acts" 

1 See Hilgenfeld in the Zeitschrift fur Wiss. Theologie, i., p. 77. 

2 See the remarks on the Rev. Mr. Rauch in the same magazine, p. 317. 

3 Page 150 of the last edition of his " Altkatholische Kirche." 



APPENDIX. 



389 



are silent ? The supposition of the existence of the decree leaves 
the second chapter of Galatians without purpose or motive ; and 
indeed what on that supposition had been more obvious than to 
have refuted his Galatian adversaries in their attempts to intro- 
duce sabbaths, circumcision, etc., by referring to the solemn 
judgment of the apostles? These adversaries pretended that 
St. Paul himself preached circumcision ; l yet not a word about 
the solemn and public renunciation of that obligation and general 
acknowledgment of Gentile freedom by the highest authority ! 
We are constrained to believe, in contradiction to Acts, St. Paul's 
express declaration, that he made no concession whatever; that 
the older apostles in " conference added nothing to him." 

The hostile collision of Paul with Peter at Antioch vanishes 
in the Acts. Peter at first disclaimed Jewish prejudices by 
eating in company with Gentiles ; but after the arrival of the 
emissaries of James, he "withdrew and separated himself, fearing 
them of the circumcision;" and thus proclaiming that belief in 
Christ was not alone sufficient for salvation. Here we have a 
renewed attempt to compel the Gentiles to Judaising compliances 
which is entirely inconsistent with the so-called apostolical decree, 
and in regard to which it is altogether impossible to distinguish 
the immediate agents from the apostles at Jerusalem whose emis- 
saries they were. What say Eitschl and his fellow apologists to 
this difficulty ? Why, that it was to prevent the infringement 
of their favourite "decree" by the illegal license of the Jewish 
converts at Antioch that these emissaries were sent ; they were 
sent, says Eitschl (p. 145), to re-establish the separation of the 
two classes of Christians according to the meaning of the decree 
as understood by James. But then this, if intended by James, 
was not the whole of what he intended. For we are expressly 
told by St. Paul that the object was, not merely to re-establish 
Judaism among the Jews, but to force Jewish institutions upon 
Gentile converts. 2 And it should be particularly noticed that 
communion at table was the especial token of Christian associa- 
tion. 3 So that here we find James, as head of the Christians of 
Jerusalem, endeavouring to enforce Jewish observances, including 

1 Galatians v. 11. 2 Galatians ii. 14. 

3 See 1 Cor. v. 11. Justin's First Apol. i. 65. Irenee. in Eusebius H. E. 
v. 24. 



390 APPENDIX. 

circumcision, 1 upon Gentile converts on pain of excommunica- 
tion; 2 although, according to the hypothesis of the decree, he 
had himself solemnly renounced any such pretension ! The truth 
is that instead of a willing and full admission of Gentile freedom 
by the apostolic body at Jerusalem, anxious only about the con- 
tinued fidelity of Jewish converts, there was an unquestionable 
disposition on their part to make the full privileges of Chris- 
tianity dependent on an unreserved acceptance of Jewish customs 
by Gentiles. Only thus can we explain the continued conflict 
pervading the Pauline epistles. 

1 That circumcision was expressly included in the requisition is rendered 
indubitable by the sequel. — Gal. v. 2, 11 ; vi. 12. 

2 In the 2nd century Justin Martyr declares his dissent from those who 
allowed only the alternative of observance or excommunication. Trypho, 
ch. 47. 



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